Literally Tazaungmon is a combination of two words “Tazaung” meaning light by oil lamps, Mon {mhon} မုန်း meaning to illuminate Illuminations with oil lamps shinning in terracotta cups. (ဆီမီးခွက်)
Geographically Myanmar lies under the tropic of Cancer enjoying three seasons: Gain-Man summer of four months Tabaung (March) Tagu (April) Kason (May) Nayone (June). Wathan (Rainy Season) Waso (July), Wakhaung (August), Tawthalin (September), Thadinkyunt (October). Heyman (winter or cold season) Tazaung mon (November), Nattaw (December), Pyatho (January), Tabodwe (February).
Astrologically called this month Bjeiha (Vris Chika) schopian Zodiacal sign. The cold breeze and the morning dew norish a porticular creeper plant called Khawei (ခဝဲ) Botanically termed “Ridged ground Luffa acutogula. Artistically beautiful blooms with soft fragrance gold coloured enticing sweet smell to all insects especially waps and butterflies.
Festivals traditionally held in Tazaungmon may be classified into Pre-Buddhist Buddhist and post Buddhist.
Among Pre-Buddhist Festivals, festivals of Planets and constellations (နက္ခတ်သဘင်) is the earliest one to clear blue sky which is freed from five kinds of pollutions namely snow, mist, cloud, sun rays and smoke (ဆီးနှင်း၊ မြူ၊ တိမ်၊ သူရိန်၊ မီးခိုး၊ ညစ်မျိုးငါးဖြာ၊ ကင်းစင်ကွာ၊ တန်ဆောင်မုန်းညအခါ) all heavenly bodies are visible to nacked eyes.
All civilizations have festivals of planets and heavenly bodies. Humans of all civilizations believed that heavenly bodies exercised influence upon them. So they had to warship and propitiate for favour.
According to Myanmar Astrology and Astronomy there are nine planets and 27 constallations Phaya Koe Zu Puja (ဘုရားကိုးဆူပူဇော်ပွဲ) are still held at the time of new house warming time was in fact Nine Planets Pujas. The conductor performers mostly Hindu Brahmins recite in mantras the songs invoking nine planets (9 Buddhas for Myanmar Buddhists. A special is made of banana stocks on which nine planets (Buddha statues are placed.) Flowers, candles, incense and fruits and milly sticky rice with coconut shells are offerred. The while night conducting performers by turn chanted their mantras with their trained voice and tones accompanied by striking of Kye-si (a triangular brass musical instrument. Early morning, some of the offerings are taken to leave for birds feed at the auspicious corner of the house.
Meizaliphu Thout (Meizalu buds salad) eating festival is another pre-Buddhist festival. It is believed that one full moon of Tazaungmon Agni, Fire god comes down to visit his friend guarding gods of Meizali trees. So, All guarding gods of Meizali trees came to pay respect to Fire god Agni. Hence all curative properties are concentrated in Meizali trees. People make tasty salad of Mezali (မယ်ဇလီဖူးသုတ်). All friends and strangers are welcome to enjoy with hot cups of plain tea.
Nex pre-Buddhist festival is Thieves’ Day Festival. On fullmon Tazaungmon Saw-ya Netkhat Thieve Netkhat (Thieve constellation) shed rays of light on earth. Anyone who caught under these rays suffer an irresistible urge to steal.
It is kleptomania only at that moments on that nigh of Fullmoon Tazaungdaing. It is a prank played by youths while everyone, even crows are sound asleep. Youths play individually or in group. They steal any thing in the compound of houses not inside the houses. Such as chamber pats, ladies’ under wears, skirts, braziers, slippers etc, etc and hang them up at road crossings or public places. On the morning, old ladies come out to take back their lost properties. Myanmar girls due to their feminine modesty do not come out to get their stolen objects. Youths yell out from hindings.
“Unity, Grandma it is your own why not the real owner come to get them.”
“You stupid fellows. You’’ll go to hell. None of your business.” Youths clapp their hands and burst out laughter. Today which kind of youth pranks can be found in far away countryside in upper Myanmar.
The most well known festival of Buddhist Myanmar is offering Kathina robes to Buddhist monks. As the writer has written many articles in the Global New Light of Myanmar he does want to respect them in this article.
But the following festivals or practices should be noted.
Matho-Thingan weaving and offering on Full Moon Tazaungmone.
It was started by Bikhuni Gatami Buddha’s foster mother. She and her followers weave, dye and turn into yellow monk’s robe within the time limit 6 pm to 6 am. If the robe can not be fninished it is called “stale” (rotten). At prominent Pagodas Matho Thingan weaving contests are held and winners are awarded with cash and kind.
Kya Thingan is a robe made out of lotus flower’s stems where there are lakes such as Inlay, Indaw Gyi as well as those in Mon, Rakhine and Shan State, and Mandalay such as robes are made and offered to Buddha Images and monks.
Pantthaku is the offering of cash or kind left on ground in the neighborhood of monasteries and nunneries. The letter Pantthaku must be written on the offers, otherwise they could be lost properties which monks or nuns could not even touch.
Youths even some grownups today hardly know such religious-socio-cultural festivals of our country. The writer not only writers about them Burmese and English but also teach in classes and talk about them home and abroad.
The following Myanmar folk song epitomizes that Tazaungmon is a many splendors month.
အဖိုးကြီးအို ခါးကုန်းကုန်း
မသေပါနဲ့ဦး
နောင်နှစ်ခါ တဆောင်မုန်း
ပွဲကြည့်ပါဦး။
Old man bent and double
Don’t die so soon.
For watch again the pwes.
Festivals at next Tazaungmon’s Fullmoon.
