Cambodia Battambang PCHUM BEN, IN HONOR OF THE ANCESTORS

 PROKEN CHANGHAN LOK, BONZE FOOD OFFERINGS

Food offerings to monks, Wat Steung Meanchey - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Pchum Ben, a major Buddhist celebration in Cambodia, begins on the fifteenth day of the tenth month of the Buddhist calendar (usually late September or early October) and lasts fifteen days. We pray for the rest of the ancestors and Cambodians are invited to go to seven different pagodas to offer food to the monks, to acquire merits on behalf of their ancestors and to appease the spirits of the deceased. .

It is during this period that the gates of hell open and leave the field open to the spirits of deceased ancestors and to people who were evil during their lifetime became Prets (a kind of evil ghosts with a very repulsive appearance. ) hungry. These return to earth in search of food, which they will find through the offerings made to the bonzes by the families at the entrance of the Sala Chan or the Kot, or even directly, during the Boh Bay Ben rite ( or throwing rice balls for ancestors) performed every night of Pchum Ben in the pagodas.
 

BOH BAY BEN, THROWING RICE BALLS FOR THE ANCESTORS

Very early in the morning, Cambodians are invited to go to the pagoda to participate in the rite of throwing rice balls for the ancestors - Boh Bay Ben, rice balls made beforehand from sticky rice. There again, it is a question of feeding the ancestors and the starving Prets who came to claim food, and thus to remove evil spirits from sacred places.

It is around four in the morning that it is advisable to go to the pagoda. Everyone gathers first at the Sala Chan to listen to the monks reciting sutras and recalling the principles of Pchum Ben.

The prayers being over, the crowd will approach the Vihear, where the Achar - laïc in charge of assisting the faithful - of the pagoda will lead the procession formed all around the Vihear. Three towers of the building will be made, during which the rice balls will be thrown outside the most sacred building of the pagoda.

POUN PHNOM KSACH, RAISE A MOUNTAIN

Buddhist rite, mountain rise - Pchum Ben, Wat Steung Meanchey, Phnom Penh - Cambodia

Under a tent arranged for the occasion in the center of the pagoda, a succession of small piles of sand, sometimes made of rice grains inside the vihear, everyone is invited to bring a little sand that they can buy. for a few hundred riel to surrounding children, incense, Tong Kropeu (crocodile flags) and bundles of hundred riel bills…

Buddhist rite, mountain rise - Pchum Ben - Wat Steung Meanchey, Phnom Penh - Cambodia

Each of the small piles formed will continue to be raised by the passage of the faithful, depositing a handful of sand, a few sticks of incense and Tong Kropeu, also placing a little loose change in the receptacles placed for this purpose at the foot of each mound. .

Buddhist rite, mountain rise - Pchum Ben - Wat Steung Meanchey, Phnom Penh - Cambodia
This rite is reproduced on the occasion of all the major Buddhist celebrations - Pchum Ben, Khmer New Year ..., the "Phnom" being symbolically erected in order to protect men from the Proleung (spirits) who have come to bring them misfortune in return for their sinners.

The time spent counting the multitude of grains of sand or rice constituting the Phnom, a calculation necessary for the Proleung before they can strike the sinners with their retribution, will allow the wrongdoers to escape the promised punishment, at least in this life present.

PROLENG CHAB, RELEASE BIRDS

Bird Liberation - Steung Meanchey Pagoda - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Pchum Ben is also a time when we will appreciate giving freedom to little sparrows -Chab, who happy with their freedom thus found, will make a wish for their liberator, protecting him and bringing luck to those around him. The correctness of the act, will also participate in increasing the merits of the person who will let the bird fly.

Bird release, Steung Meanchey Pagoda - Phnom Penh - Cambodia