New Year celebration, Rodnam Damhua, a traditional way to celebrate with elders. Most Thai people go back to their hometowns to meet their elders.
New Year celebration near Khao San Road
The Thai New Year (Thai: ???????? Songkran, from Sanskrit sankranti "astrological passage") is celebrated every year from April 13 to April 15. It coincides with the New Year of many other calendars in South and Southeast Asia.
The date of the festival was originally set by astrological calculation, but it is now fixed. If these days fall on a weekend, the missed days off are taken on the weekdays immediately following. If they fall in the middle of the week, many Thai take off from the previous Friday until the following Monday! Songkran falls in the hottest time of the year in Thailand, at the end of the dry season. Until 1888 the Thai New Year was the beginning of the year in Thailand; thereafter 1 April was used until 1940. 1 January is now the beginning of the year. The traditional Thai New Year has been a national holiday since then.
New year traditions
Songkran at Wat Thai in Los Angeles
The most obvious celebration of Songkran is the throwing of water. People roam the streets with containers of water or water guns, or post themselves at the side of roads with a garden hose and drench each other and passersby. This, however, was not always the main activity of this festival. Songkran was traditionally a time to visit and pay respects to elders, including family members, friends and neighbors.
Besides the throwing of water, people celebrating Songkran may also go to a wat (Buddhist monastery) to pray and give food to monks. They may also cleanse Buddha images from household shrines as well as Buddha images at monasteries by gently pouring water mixed with a Thai fragrance (????????) over them. It is believed that doing this will bring good luck and prosperity for the New Year. In many cities, such as Chiang Mai, the Buddha images from all of the city's important monasteries are paraded through the streets so that people can toss water at them, ritually 'bathing' the images, as they pass by on ornately decorated floats. In northern Thailand, people may carry handfuls of sand to their neighborhood monastery in order to recompense the dirt that they have carried away on their feet during the rest of the year. The sand is then sculpted into stupa-shaped piles and decorated with colorful flags.
Some people make New Year resolutions - to refrain from bad behavior, or to do good things. Songkran is a time for cleaning and renewal. Besides washing household Buddha images, many Thais also take this opportunity to give their home a thorough cleaning.
The throwing of water originated as a way to pay respect to people, by gently pouring a small amount of lustral water on other people’s hands or over a shoulder as a sign of respect. Among young people the holiday evolved to include dousing strangers with water to relieve the heat, since April is the hottest month in Thailand (temperatures can rise to over 100°F or 40°C on some days). This has further evolved into water fights and splashing water over people riding in vehicles.
The use of chalk (????????) is also very common having originated in the chalk used by monks to mark blessings.
Some children having fun at the Bangkok Zoo during Songkran.
Nowadays, the emphasis is on fun and water-throwing rather than on the festival's spiritual and religious aspects, which sometimes prompts complaints from traditionalists. In recent years there have been calls to moderate the festival to lessen the many alcohol-related road accidents as well as injuries attributed to extreme behavior such as water being thrown in the faces of traveling motorcyclists.
The water is meant as a symbol of washing all of the bad away and is sometimes filled with fragrant herbs.
Astrological calculation
Although the traditional calendar of Thailand like most of Southeast Asia utilizes a lunisolar calendar, the date of the new year was calculated on a purely solar basis. The term Songkran comes from Sanskrit "Sankranta" and means "a move or change" - in this case the move of the sun into the Aries zodiac. Originally this happened at the vernal equinox, but, as the Thai astrology did not observe precession, the date moved from March to April.
There is a similar named Indian Festival called as Sankrant or Makar Sankranti[1], celebrated on 14 January every year. Songkran as such has similarity to Indian festival of Holi.
Greetings
The traditional greeting is "????????????" (sa-wat-di pi mai), basically "Happy New Year". "Sawatdi" = also used for "hello" or "goodbye" (Romanized spellings may vary, i.e. "sawadee" or "sawasdee"). "Pi" = year. "Mai" = new. Or "??????????????" (suk-san pi mai), "Suksan" = Happy.
However, most people use "???????????????????" (suk-san wan songkran) - meaning "Happy Songkran Day" - since "pi mai" is more often linked with the first of January. "Suksan" is also used as an attribute for other days such as "Valentine's Day" ("??????????????????????", suk-san wan haeng khwam rak) = Happy Valentine's Day.
In other calendars
Songkran is also celebrated in Laos (called pi mai lao), Cambodia (called Chaul Chnam Thmey, Cambodian New Year), Myanmar (called Thingyan), and by the Dai people in Yunnan, China. The same day is celebrated in South Asian calendars as well: the Assamese (called Rongali Bihu), Bengali (called Pohela Boishakh), Oriya (called Maha Visuba Sangkranti), Malayali, Punjabi, Sinhalese, and Tamil New Years fall on the same dates, based on the astrological event of the sun beginning its northward journey. It 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).[2]
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