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The Buddhist tradition of Karen people from Teen-Tok village |
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The Tradition of building Wooden bridge to worship the Lord Buddha |
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The Tradition is originally carried out on the full moon of 5th Lunar month, every year. People will come together in order to build the bridge across the river with bamboo sticks. Betel nuts would be hung on the bridge for giving to people who cross it. This giving is done with the faith of worshiping Lord Buddha and its origin came from the telling story among Karen people. It is the legend from the Buddha’s time about The Lord Buddha’s travelling throughout the lands to show his clemency to all of those animals. Once he reached one village, he was obstructed by the river. The bridge across the river had been build earlier but it wasn’t finished yet, there still was a space wide enough for jumping back and forth. The jumping was not the right way of the Lord Buddha to cross the river, so he stood still at the space of the bridge . Then, a young man who observed the Lord Buddha’ symptom, had the faith in his heart, he laid down at that space and made himself as the bridge for the Lord Buddha. With such an act, his spirit was re-born in heaven and he was back on earth as another Lord Buddha in later life. |
From this story, for the Karen villagers, apart from building the bridge tradition, there is also the tradition of bathing the monks. |
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The tradition of bathing the monks |
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The tradition is taken during Songkran festival and it is based on the legend of a young man laying himself down and made himself as the bridge across the river for Lord Buddha. It’s also the year-end merit making activity to welcome New Year because Songkran according toThai ancient astrology is the day that Sun will move into the new sign of the Zodiac. |
| The ritual is simple. People will prepare the ceremony for bathing the monks in the temples, by cutting the bamboo sticks into gullies where water will be poured from the back of the monks to the end of gullies at the front. When is the scheduled time, the male villagers will kneel down and make themselves the bridge for the monks to walk to the ceremony. Furthermore, this is not only because of belief to be merit making, the people also believe that when they sacrifice themselves for the monks to step on, all of their troubles, sadness, sickness and any danger will disappear. It’s like another kind of exorcising activity. |
| In case there are not enough men for making themselves the bridge, the activity could be changed to a couple men, clasping hands together, then a monk sit in the middle, and these 2 men carry the monk to the ceremony. |
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The tradition of trigging the Bodh tree |
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There has been a telling story among Karen people about a man meeting the angel of death who told him that his life would be end in the following day. With the fear of death will come to him, which made him anxious and fidgeted, he couldn’t stay peacefully in his own home. He went out for a walk with the hope to relieve this disturbing. |
While taking a walk, he saw a tree was about to fall down. He noticed it was Bodh tree and suddenly realized Bodh tree related to Lord Buddha’s enlightenment. So that, in addition with his faith in Lord Buddha, he decided to save the tree for worshiping the Buddha Lord. He began pouring water at the base of the tree, then used the wooden stick trigging this Bodh tree little by little until the tree was successfully upright. When the Angel of death came back to him in the next day, he checked again the list of death people but couldn’t find the man’s name. The death angel was curious so he asked if the man had done anything that might cause the change in his list. The man firstly said he didn’t do anything but after being asked heavily, he then realized that he helped trigging the Bodh tree. The Angel of Death released the man’s life after hearing the story. It has become the legend of all Karens and they continue performing the tradition of trigging Bodh tree in worshiping the Lord Buddha once a year, to these days. |
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