During Pchum Ben, very early in the mornings, people cook rice and, in the pal of their hand, form rice balls called bey bun. Before dawn, they bring these bey bun, along with other offerings to the pagoda’s main building (the vihira) to convene the souls of the deceased. At a certain point during the ceremony, the participants circle the vahira three times scattering the bey bun to the ground. After the procession, some of the people return inside and join the monks chanting. (Ly Daravuth, Notes On Pchum Ben, Boston: Brandeis University, 2005.)
Daravuth’s stated intention in this paragraph is not to provide an anthropological description of Pchum Ben, but rather to describe a ritual that has many different variations. To some degree, I can elaborate on this description, myself having been to the Pchum Ben ceremonies in Kampong several times. In gathering some more detailed background on Pchum Ben over the past few days, there are some key points that one must understand before discussing the actual ceremony. To begin with, the reason why this ceremony takes place during the early hours of the morning is very specific. It is a widely held belief that spirits can only be released from the afterlife during the early morning hours before the sun rises. By giving them food, one honors them and ensures that they will eventually leave the afterlife to continue in the cycle of reincarnation. It is also important to remember that when one gives the offerings, it is not simply for your own ancestors. Rather, you offer on the behalf of the community. The idea of collectivity is stressed in this ritual, as nearly everyone from the villages participates.
An example of this unifying element in the ceremony can be found in a simple anecdote that happened some nights ago. In helping my family prepare the bey bun used in the ceremony, I accidentally rolled a ball of rice that was too large. Both my older and younger host sister criticized me for doing this, and I retorted by saying, “Kroo ah sah slaap khym jiang klien kroo ah sah neak” (My dead ancestors are simply hungrier than yours). The two sisters laughed, but the eldest one reminded me politely that the bey bun feeds everyone’s ancestors, and not simply my own.
The Pchum Ben Ceremony
On Friday, September 25th, I awoke at three fifteen in the morning. Moving around my room and house as not to disturb the still and silent sleeping members of the family, I departed quietly at nearly a quarter to four. Using a small lamp to find my way in the dark, I rode on my bicycle to the house of a friend and fellow volunteer. I met his host family there, as well as himself and three other American friends. We rode on our bicycles to a pagoda located directly off the national road, and removed our helmets as sign of respect as we entered the grounds of the temple. It is generally cool during these morning hours, and the temperature felt comfortable as we rode through the dark along the national road.
After parking our bicycles outside the vahira of the pagoda, we removed our shoes and sat on the rice mats at some distance from the altar. It is custom when entering the vahira to kneel, and bow your head three times with both your hands touching the floor. The Chinese describe this movement as the cow tow, but I am not exactly sure if the Cambodians have one that is its equivalent. After performing this action, we were quickly led to the altar itself to offer burning bundles of incense. Several large golden Buddhas stood before us, including one that held a magnificently glowing halo behind its head. After placing the incense in an earthenware pot before the altar, we sat down again and held our hands together in prayer position. The amount of burning incense near the altar that the smoke caused me to cough several times before I was able to find some fresh air.
The monks chanted for some time after that. I cannot say for how long, but I was relieved when they stopped. For someone who is not accustomed to sitting on straw mats for most of their lives, the introduction to this oriental posture can be quite painful. When sitting on the floor before the Buddha, the custom is to sit with your legs folded so that both of them are pointed in the same direction. Try this for a moment: Sit on the floor with your legs crossed in what westerners would call “Indian style.” Now take your left leg and place it firmly against your right. The left leg should be sticking out a bit. You must remember that you cannot use your right arm for balance, for it is currently occupied in prayer position. Some people find it easy, but I find it quite painful. During the second ceremony of this kind that I attended, my host brother-in-law showed me a way of propping up one of my legs that made the posture less painful.
In concluding the ceremony, the monks altered the regular, single tone pitch of their voices several times in a way that seemed to infer a question. While the words were not familiar, the sound of them almost resembled a, “Ahnn?” The response to this by the congregation was a simple, “Ahhnn.” After three repetitions of this, the people stood up and moved outside. The host family of my friend gave us plates of ball-shaped sticky rice (bey bun) that had a single candle in the middle of them, as well as bottles of water and incense. We lit the candle as to see what we were doing in the dark, and proceeded to move around the vahira. Eight stations were set up, and the congregation lined up to toss the bey bun and pour the water into a plastic bucket at each one until all of rice they had was spent. Only the candles illuminated the people who held them, and the people moved in a train of lights around the vahira several times. After this, the congregation dispersed or went back inside the vahira. As we bicycled home, the sun came up on our right. In a beautiful display of red and blue against the black profile of the coconut trees, it rose until we could clearly see the road in front of us.
Much of this experience was repeated exactly during the second time that I participated in this ceremony, with the exception of a few minor details. When the moment came to leave the vahira and go around to the different stations, we had to walk barefoot. In addition to throwing the rice, my host family and I threw splices of bananas as well. I was surprised by how similar it was, despite the fact that we were at a different Wat.
It is interesting to find that the festival is not limited to just these morning services. I discovered this when I would go to the Wat during the day for language or technical sessions of training. For the latter, one assignment required the trainees and I to plan and develop a community activity in Kampong. Since the Wat is a public place where many families come frequently during the Pchum Ben festival, four of us asked the head monk to hold a music presentation for the children during one of festival days of Kan Ben. The session was a success, and afterward we were invited to participate in the midday ritual in the vahira.
On most days of the festival around lunchtime, rice and other dishes of food are prepared by a particular family and are offered to the monks. One station is set up whereby one can place the rice eaten by the monks into three silver pots. The monks themselves sit in a line that runs perpendicular to the altar, and chant while bowls of food and sticky white rice are placed before them. When they are finished chanting, they eat some of the food before giving the rest to the congregation. It is then, and only then that it is permissible to begin eating.
During the actual Pchum Ben day celebration, families gather together from all over the country to be together at the pagoda in order to honor their dead. A small contingent of my host family’s relatives came up from Phnom Penh during the morning, and we went to the Wat together. Almost immediately after we arrived, we went to visit my host father’s father at his grave some distance from the Wat. People who are Chinese-Cambodian in this country typically bury their dead, whereas most Cambodians have the body cremated; therefore, the ceremony that I witnessed at this site is not something that one sees typically in Cambodia. When we arrived, a small straw mat was laid out. Two monks sat before us with their backs to the grave, and chanted while we sat and held our hands in prayer position. After some time, my host father poured water onto the ground in what must have been some kind of offering. The chanting stopped, and we packed up to leave. We then formed into a line with at least two hundred people that formed a human circle around the vahira. Nineteen monks proceeded to go around this ring and collect rice and money from everyone. They moved slowly, and I could feel the sun beating down upon my face while I waited. One family decided to introduce their infant daughter to me, but she cried hysterically in fright when I greeted her in Khmer. The monks finally came to us, and we gave them the rice we held in our porcelain bowls. After this, we left to go back to the house, where we ate a large meal of rice, curried pork, and a fish soup. In the afternoon, I bid goodbye to the family and went to friend’s house to play cards and drink coffee.
A Pchum Ben For Pol Pot
Ly Daravuth also writes something interesting having to deal with the recent nature of Cambodian history. In his work on reconciliation and the arts in Cambodia, he mentions that the era of the Khmer Rouge is something that present and future generations of Cambodians will have to deal with. From a religious perspective, the tragedy of this period presents a rather unique problem. Those who died during the period of genocide, whether they were members of the Khmer Rouge themselves or the victims of their tyranny, have “their souls condemned to wander, damned to never reincarnate, unless acknowledged in a proper ceremony” (Daravuth, 2). Daravuth expresses the desire to have a special Pchum Ben to acknowledge these people, but admits that this has simply not happened yet.
To be frank, it is easy to see why. I have only been in this country a little over two months, but in the many interactions I have had with Cambodians I can see a desire of not wanting to remember this period of history. A perfect example of this is the fact that many leaders of Cambodia’s present government are former leaders of the Khmer Rouge themselves. The people do not want to dwell on this horrible episode of their history, and would rather turn almost a blind eye to it. The conversations I have had about the 1975 to 1979 Khmer Rouge era, which most Cambodians refer to as simply Pol Pot, have been far and few between. Even when they do happen, I have a feeling that they witnessed a few things that they have long since buried in a private corner of their memory. Knowing this, it is not a far stretch to understand why a special Pchum Ben ceremony will probably not happen.
As one older man told me in French. “Pendant la génocide de Pol Pot, j’étais un homme ignorant. Maintenant, je veux garder cette ignorance.” (During the time of Pol Pot, I was ignorant man. Now, I want to keep this ignorance.)
No comments:
Post a Comment