![]() ![]() It is celebrated on the first full moon day in May, but when it's a leap year it falls in June. It almost seems like it knows what it is carrying.Buddha's Birthday is known as Vesak and is one of the major festivals of the year. But the elephant carries something else in its place to represent the tooth. She added: “We can’t take out the real Buddha’s tooth as people believe that doing so would cause something terrible to happen. It just keeps walking where it’s supposed to go,” she said. “It’s quite amazing that the animal knows what to do and never acts out of line. For her, it’s the elephants – and in particular, the one specially trained and tasked with carrying a “relic of the Tooth Relic” (not the actual tooth but something standing in symbolically). With so much taking place, what is the most impressive element of this spectacle?įor Mishelle, it’s not the dancing, fire eating, ceaseless drumming or the throngs of people building by the day. You do also see people wearing masks of ghosts and demons, but this is still all quite traditional.” People dance and do all kinds of interesting things for the tooth, for the Buddha. “People are praying to the tooth – three times daily – and bringing offerings, flowers to it. It’s actually quite traditional,” Mishelle said. The water is then kept in the pitchers for the entire year. The priests “cut” circles in the water with a sword and fill pitchers with water from within the circle. The procession ends at dawn with a water-cutting ceremony in which four priests representing the four temples enter the Mahaweli River. These processions continue to swell each night until the last night of the pageant, when a massive, specially trained elephant carries a relic of the Tooth Relic in a golden chest on its back as the performers entertain crowds along the route. On the sixth night – which is tonight for this year’s festival – the atmosphere takes a sober turn when processions begin from each shrine and move in the direction of the Temple of the Tooth. Once the planting is done, the festivities begin. Pieces of the tree are planted near the shrines of the four Buddhist gods that protect the island, namely, Natha Vishnu, Kataragama and Pattini. The one in Kandy just happens to be the biggest and oldest.”Īt Kandy’s Esala, the festival begins with the cutting of a ceremonial jack tree. There are actually many Perahera festivals around Sri Lanka. It’s a very special festival for Buddhists. “My father is a Buddhist Sri Lankan and my mother is Japanese. I’ve been five or six times,” Mishelle, a half-Japanese, half-Sri Lankan living in Tokyo, told The Diplomat. “Most Sri Lankans either go in person or watch from television. But in Sri Lanka, the tooth commands a level of reverence not found among Buddhists in these other locales.Įnjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Temples in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and even California believe they possess one of Gautama’s teeth. Get the NewsletterĪ caveat: Sri Lanka is not the only spot in Asia to claim a piece of the Buddha. Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific. #Buddhism elephant festival crackA total of ten sensory-overloading parades take place and you can’t help but participate.Īs the festival website puts it, “you’ll inhale wafting incense, jasmine and frangipani bouquets…and gasp in awe as fire eaters swing burning coconut husks from chains and men crack whips to scare away demons only inches from people’s faces.” Diplomat Brief Weekly Newsletter N Today the festival also incorporates Hindu elements, as four processions (or parades) actually begin at Hindu temples (more on this below). In its present incarnation, the Esala fuses two Peraheras (“Processions”): The Esala Perahera, which was originally a ritual conducted to invoke the rain gods and the Dalada Perahera, which began when the Sacred Tooth Relic arrived. The famed incisor now rests in the island’s holiest temple, Dalada Maligawa (aka Temple of the Tooth). Scantily clad dancers, fire eaters and elephants wearing illuminated garments parade by as beats are relentlessly drummed and men crack whips to scare away demons portrayed by mask wearing participants – all of this in celebration of a single tooth.Īccording to legend, a tooth, supposedly cribbed from the Buddha’s funeral pyre, wound up in Sri Lanka in the fourth century CE when it was smuggled in by Princess Hemamala and Prince Dantha. Lawrence once said about Sri Lanka’s Esala Perahera, the nation’s biggest and one of the world’s oldest religious festivals, taking place across the island this year from August 11 to 21. A “perpetual fire-laughing motion among the slow shuffle of elephants”: this is what D.H. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |