Bodh Gaya celebrates traditional Buddhist
New Year
Yahoo News ANI 2014-04-16
Bodh Gaya, Apr.15 (ANI): Buddhist monks
from across the world converged at ancient temple in Bihar to
celebrate traditional water festival, heralding the New Year for
the community.
On Monday, Buddhist monks offered water at
the statue of Lord Buddha in Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya and
marked the traditional new year.
Water is offered. In our Buddhist society,
people offer water to each other and seek blessings from each
other. Today, we celebrated water festival which we generally
celebrate on the arrival of New Year of Buddhist community. We had
invited people on this occasion of Songkran (traditional New Year),
which also marked the anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar (architect
of Indian Constitution, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar) and we gathered
over here. We also celebrated it as water festival, said caretaker
of Bodh Gaya temple, Bhante Dinanand.
The area is sacrosanct to Buddhists all
over the world since it was under the Mahabodhi tree that Lord
Buddha attained enlightenment.
In the year 2002, the UNESCO had declared
Mahabodhi Temple as a World Heritage Site. (ANI)
Songkran
is also celebrated in Laos
(called
pee
mai lao),
Cambodia
(called Chaul
Chnam Thmey, Cambodian
New Year),
Myanmar
(called
Thingyan
သင်္ကြန်), and by the Dai
people in Yunnan,
China
(called
Water-Splashing
Festival). The same day is celebrated in
South Asian calendars as well: the Assamese
(called
Rongali
Bihu), Bengali
(called
Pohela
Boishakh), Maithils
(called
Jood
Sheetal), Oriya
(called Maha
Visuba Sankranthi),
Malayali,
Punjabi,
Sinhalese,
and Tamil
New Years fall on the
same dates, based on the astrological event of the sun beginning
its northward journey. Songkran as such is similar to the Indian
festival of Rangapanchami,
Holi,
with a lot of splashing of water as paints, colored dusts, and
fragrances.
Songkran is similar to Jood Sheetal
festival celebrated by Maithils in parts of Bihar and Nepal, also
their new year, where water is poured on younger people's head, on
plants, roads and everywhere possible. With putting water, one of
the 5 constituents of life, on heads of youngers, elders bless them
to be satisfied and never be longing for something unduly (Jiya
Judal rahai in maithili). In Maithil villages, same age people pour
water and mud on each other in
celebration.
The traditional
new year celebration in Sri
Lanka also
coincides with the Thai new year.
In
Nepal,
the official new year is celebrated on the 1st of Baisakh
(Baisākh)
according to astrological calendar Vikram
Samwat and
day often falls somewhere between 12–15
April.
Songkran occurs
at the same time as that given by Bede
for
festivals
of
Eostre
—
and Easter
weekend occasionally coincides with
Songkran (most recently 1979, 1990, and 2001, but not again until
2085.[7])
From Wikipedia, the free
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