Thailand Festivals and Events 2012

MEANING: Tak Bat Devo is a kind of offering food to monks in DEVO style and is normally held on the first day of the eleventh waning moon according to the lunar year.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: This tradition of Tak Bat Vedo is derived from the original Pali term “Devorohana” that means “the Buddha’s   coming down from the heavenly world.”   According to the story, immediately after the Buddha had attained Enlightenment, he went forth to preach his teaching (Dharma) to people in all states of India that was then known as Chumpudipa started from the cities of Rajagaha, Varanasi or Banares, Savatthi and Kabilavasatu, the city of his fatherland. In Kabilavasatu city, the Buddha preached sermons to all of his kinsmen, such as King Suddhodana, his father, Queen Mahaprajapati, his aunt and step-mother, Yasodhara or Pimbha, his former wife and Rahula, his son and made them all realise the Four Noble Truths and attain some enlightenment according to their previously accumulated perfection. Then the Buddha remembered Queen Mahamaya, his own mother, who passed away seven days after the Buddha was born. The Buddha thought of repaying her invaluable and incomparable debt and after having deliberately considered thus felt that only the Abhidhamma (the profound truth) would be sufficiently valuable to pay off the debt of her milk and loving kindness. Then, seven years after his Enlightenment, he went up to Tavatimsa heaven, the abode of Indra God, for the rainy season retreat of three months and there he preached her the Abhidhamma Pitaka. On the last day of the retreat as on the first day of the eleventh waning moon in the lunar year the Buddha came down to Earth at the city called Sangkassa, when thousands of people presented food to him and his disciples. For this reason, the first day of the eleventh waning moon is regarded as the Buddha’s day of coming down from the heaven to the human world and so people try their best to make a special food-offering to monks that this kind of merit-making is being practised up to the present time and known as “Tak Bat Devo”.