THAILAND 🇹🇭 | Poy Sang Long Festival

ประเพณีปอยส่างลอง (Poy Sang Long Ceremony) หรืองานบวชลูกแก้ว

📷 Credit: VoKeng Prateep

🌿 Location: Wat Ku Tao (วัดกู่เต้า) or Wat Welu Wanaram, Chiang Mai, Nortnern Thailand.

🔸 To be ordained into monkhood is a very important traditional practice of the Tai Yai. Boys over 12 undergo this rite of passage by being inducted into the Buddhist novicehood. Before the ceremony takes place, the parents need to present their boys to the resident abbots in order that they will learn to read religious texts, and about the ordination rite. The boys must learn by heart some necessary terms e.g. for asking permission to be ordained as well as some blessing terms. As soon as they are thus prepared, they are ready for a novice ordination ceremony. March-May is generally the best time for the ceremony, which can be scheduled for 3-5 days. The ceremony is known as the Poy Buad Luk Kaew – ordination of the beloved (or jeweled) son (luk kaeo), or in their Tai Yai dialect the Poy Sang Long. This happy occasion is celebrated by the ethnic Tai people living in Mae Hong Son Province and some Chiangmai districts.

✦ In the Tai language, “song” means a novice, and “long” or “along” refers to an heir. A Tai legend gives account of the origin of this traditional practice the people have adhered to for so long. This novice ordination is meant for boys to have an opportunity to be on the religious path, to learn the tenets of the Buddhist teaching. It is regarded as an act of devotion and gratitude for their parents because they too would earn the merits. This belief went far back to the Buddha’s time – when the Buddha’s mother Princess Yasodhara was encouraging her son Rahula to ask from his father Prince Siddhartha for his inheritance so that he would become king. But instead Lord Buddha bestowed on his son a priceless fortune, which was to have Rahula ordained as a novice monk. Rahula became the first Buddhist novice. Another legend goes that as a prince, Siddhartha had been invested with so much worldly wealth, yet he renounced it all and set out to seek the enlightenment. These legends have influenced significantly the Poy Sang Long tradition of the Tai Yai people.

✦ The Poy Sang Long is importantly adhered to particularly in a family having a son. The parents eagerly await the day their son is ordained. They have this strong belief that the merits earned by their son would take them to heaven after their death. On the other hand, this could be regarded as the parents’ clever trick to persuade their boy to wisely spend his free time during the long summer school break by studying the Buddhist doctrine.

✦ The sang long parade itself is a loud and joyful affair. The colorful procession as it is heading to the temple is accompanied by a Tai music band consisting of the drums, the cymbals, and musical performances of dancing and singing. The bejeweled, fully made-up sang long in brightly colored ceremonial costume is carried aloof on the shoulders of his ta pae sang long, forming a merry colorful entourage. Along the way, the sang long is brought to the village’s holy places e.g. the village spirit shrine, the ruler’s shrine, to pay his respects. He also needs to visit some important persons like the abbot, respectable elderly relatives and some other community members – to ask for their forgiveness for any wrongdoing acts he might have committed, and in turn are blessed by them.

👑 Link: https://www.sac.or.th/databases/rituals/en/detail.php?id=12

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