VO End to Buddhist Lent
INTRO: Whether it’s shopping for a bargain, making merit or cheering on your favourite boat-racing crew, the end of Buddhist Lenten season is a colourful time to be in Vientiane. Local and international revelers alike congregate in town by the Mekong River to celebrate this festival known to locals as “Ork Phan Sa.”
STORY: Ork Phan Sa, on October 8, marks the end of the three-month Lent period, a season during which monks and novices remain largely cloistered in their temples.
Those undertaking their spiritual duties generally spend the three months at respective home temples as a show of commitment that coincides with the rainy season from July to October. With the arrival of the long-awaited Ork Phan Sa, monks and novices are once again permitted to travel and stay elsewhere overnight.
It is said that traditions of Buddhist Lent arose from the teachings of the Buddha himself, who called on his disciples to avoid travel in rainy season, except in special cases or emergency.
Such traditions have both spiritual and practical aspects.
In the rainy season farmers are busy planting rice, while aquatic life is busy breeding. It is said that the traditional prohibition on travel prevents an errant travelling monk or novice from accidentally treading upon seedlings or impacting negatively upon the fields, stock or wildlife breeding.
To mark the end of this period, lay Lao Buddhist devotees make morning visits to local temples to make merit via giving offerings to monks. This merit they believe will benefit the spirits of relatives who have passed away.
At night locals, particularly young couples will join friends by the Mekong River to attend the colourful of Lai Heua Fay ceremony.
The ceremony sees bamboo boats launched together with thousands of floating folded banana leaves bearing flowers, incense and candles in order to pay homage to the river spirit and dispel bad luck.
These bamboo boats carry a precious cargo in the long journey downstream, namely the couple’s prayers for long-lasting love.
The candlelit boats create a stunning sight from the riverbank, as people make their way down to the water’s edge to cast them adrift.
Some people also mark the festival in their homes by lighting candles on their balconies and prayer altars, while some families fold banana leaves to resemble traditional longboats (heua fay khok) and decorate them with flowers, candles, incense and balls of sticky rice.
These banana-leaf boats are held together with frames of bamboo, and shaped into the head of a naga (legendary serpent) in the hope of bringing harmony and good luck to the family. Some people set off fireworks or hold colourful candlelit processions around their neighbourhoods and villages to seek blessings from both the naga and from Buddha.
Many local temples display these traditional boats made by monks on the temple grounds which are decorated with candles. The monks create several different styles of boats to provide an enjoyable spectacle for the thousands who turn out for the event.
Fireworks light up the night sky and along some sections of the Mekong River it is believed that fireballs can be seen rising from the water as the river-dwelling naga make their presence felt.
According to Lao tradition, these pyrotechnic displays are the nagas’ way of honouring Buddha for the three months of mediation he undertook during Lent.
The festival has always been one of the more boisterous events of the annual calendar, with colorful sights and happy sounds as vendors do a roaring trade in specialty products.

свернуть