Day of Vesak

When you travel to Cambodia, you always want to dive into the culture of that new country you are exploring. The best way to see the great features of the culture is of course to become the participant of the national holiday or the local celebrations. Not a simple observer, but the participant, however, if you simply observe it is still good enough, but not as good as being personally involved into the action, the preparation, the after-party. The unique human spirit surrounds the atmosphere of the holiday and makes it special and memorable. Therefore, as a tourist, you should participate in the Day of Vesak.   

To help you better understand what this day is, this article will be divided into three major parts:

1. The history of this holiday
2. The main features of Vesak
3. Current celebrations of Vesak

History

This holiday got a great popularity among the countries of the Southern Asia. The way this holiday came into being is also a very specific feature of the people of that area. It is believed that the moment, when Buddha was born, received his borderless knowledge and reached the nirvana state is a special time for people to celebrate his achievements and thus he, being in this special not earthily state can grant to people, celebrating his main moments of live, the part of his knowledge. Some people and monks from Cambodia say that people are able to reach the state of nirvana, but the state that the Buddha reached is ultimate and is even called pari-nirvana, which none of the humans beings has reached and most probably will not be able to reach, if Buddha himself will not allow this to the person by sharing his knowledge with him.

Features

As our readers are now familiar with the reason, why this celebration appeared, it is easy to say now that the main feature is to dedicate this Day of Vesak to Buddha and his crucial moment of acquiring the knowledge. Therefore, to celebrate, all of the temples in the cities and villages are decorated. As the temple is the place where the person can get knowledge, they are decorated with a special tenderness, because this is the other type of food that the person needs, as the Cambodian people say. The decorations are made out of colorful flowers, with various paper pictures, where ornaments are drawn. Why the decorations are made out of flowers is also symbolical, because as the flower blooms from a bud into a beautiful blossom, the same way the human knowledge goes from a bud in their minds into a big and valuable blossom in the heads.

Current Holiday

The way people celebrate this holiday in Cambodia today is not that different from the ancient times. However, there were added some more features, which makes this holiday even more beautiful and unique. The ornaments of the national culture are placed all over the temples and also all over thе homes of simple people. They also put flowers where possible to symbolize the great knowledge. At the same time, on the corners they put the oil lamps, which will brighten the streets in the evening. As you can already wonder, this is also a symbol of knowledge – the light, which comes into the heads of the chosen ones. Therefore, people also light the special paper lanterns. This is a new feature, because when they are filled with the hot air, they fly high into the sky and now Cambodian people say that this is like a small sign to Buddha up there high to see that their knowledge will also get them high to him.

So if you are lucky to be in Cambodia on the Day of  Vesak, don't waste time: prepare your best wearing (a compact iron will help you to look perfectly anywhere) and hurry up to join celebration.