Big Day Highlights Thadingyut Festival (the second most popular festival after Thingyan) Thadingyut, the seventh month of the Myanmar calendar, is the end of the Buddhist lent or Vassa. Thadingyut festival last for three days: the day before the full moon day, the full moon day and the day after the full moon day. Buddha descends from heaven on the full moon day itself. Buddha’s mother, Maya, died seven days after the Buddha was born and then she was reborn in the Trayastrimsa Heaven.In order to pay back the gratitude to his mother, Buddha preached Abhidhamma to his mother for three Lenten months. When he was descending back to the mortal world, Sakra-devanam-indra, the ruler of the Trayastrimsa Heaven, ordered all the saints and evils to make three precious stairways.Those stairways were made of gold, silver and ruby. The Buddha took the middle one with the ruby. The Nats (Deva) came along by the right golden stairways and the Brahmas from the left silver stairways. Buddhists celebrate Thadingyut to welcome the Buddha and his disciples by enlightening and festooning the streets, houses and public buildings with colored electric bulbs or candles, which represent those three stairways. Credits go to photo owners and wikipedia.
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 07:52:02 +0000