Until the present time. in some places in Cambodia, when there is rain to make the soil soft enough for farming, they normally see the farmers make Chrorm (altar made of bamboo) on which they put rice, soup and cake and set it in their paddy fields for the purpose of making their harvest more productive. It is usually called "Sen Preah Phoum" (which literally means "the offering made to the soil". According to a research of our group, the tradition of making an offering to the soil has existed since the Buddhist period. but at that time, they worshipped a giantess for an information about rain. A long while later, the people forgot all about it and they thought that offering to the soil means offering to the god who protects this earth, but it is not far from the original cause despite such a belief. A story extracted from Thoamabot scriptures goes as follows: In the Buddhist period, there was a wealthy man, but his wife was sterile and had no children. The wealthy man's mother thought: "If my son does not have any children to succeed him, who will take care of all the property after him." Her idea was later known to the first wife, who thought: "If my husband has a second wife and that woman has a child, she will then control all the wealth and in charge of everything in the house. I will then lose “Shot and no one will be friendly to me any more, so I should go to propose marriage to another woman to be my husband's second wife on behalf of my mother-in-law. By so doing. the second wife will respect me." After that, she went to talk to her mother-in- law to guarantee to go to propose marriage to another woman for her husband. The mother-In-law agreed. No sooner had her husband married a second wife than the second wife became pregnant. Knowing that, the first wife mixed medicine with food and gave that food to the second wife to eat. The baby that had just grown in the womb was aborted again and again. For the third time, the medicine the first wife had prepared not only destroyed the unborn baby, but also took the mother's life. Prior to her death, the second wife realized that it was the first wife who had harmed her, so she bore rancor against the first wife: “This woman is very bad. She has given me medicine to abort my unborn babies again and again and this time, she kills me as well. In my next life, please enable me to eat her baby to revenge my babies” After uttering the last words, the second wife Passed away and was born as a cat while the first Wife was born as a hen after she had died. After the hen had laid eggs, the cat went to eat all the eggs till for the third times. Then, prior for her death, the hen bore malice against the cat, praying that she would be able to eat the cat’s kittens in her following life In the following life, the cat was born as a female deer while the hen was born as a tiger. When the female deer had given birth to a baby, the tiger always went to eat the baby deer until for the third time. In the following life, the tiger was born as a woman called Neang Kol Thida while the female deer was born as a giantess. At a time when Neang Kol Thida was delivered of a baby, the giantess transfonned herself into one of Neang Kol T hida‘s friends to go to visit Neang Kol Thida, but she caught the baby and ate it. When it was for the third time, Neang Kol Thida, her husband and her baby went to bathe in a pond. After bathing, Neang Kal Thida hold her baby in her arms and wait her husband. At that time, she saw the approaching her from a distance, Neang Kol Thida was at once aware of such a fatal danger to her baby, so she held Her baby to her chest and away. Neang Kol Thida ran on and on till she arrived at the Jetavana monastery when the Buddha wa preaching sermon Among many Buddhist believers. So scared was Neang Kol Thida that she placed her baby beside the Buddha's feet and and cried out. begging the Buddha to save her baby from the giantess. The giantess ran after Neang Kol Thida as far as the monastery's wall, but she did not dare to enter the monastery when she saw a lot off people, so the giantess stood outside the wall. The Buddha told Armada to go to call the giantess to come in. After the giantess had come in and saluted the Buddha. the Buddha told then about what had happened in their previous lives and about how to rid oneself of vindictiveness by not being vindictive. Then, the. Buddha solved the dispute between Neang Kol Thida and the giantess and asked them to consider each other as sisters. The giantess asked the Buddha about how she would live as she would live by catching both human and animals for food, so how she could feed herself since the Buddha required her to adhere to moral precepts. The Buddha told Neang Kol Tltida to lodge and feed the giantess. The giantess knew how to predict rain. Therefore, if she knew that there would be a little rain this year, she would tell Neang Kol Thida to cultivate rice in the low fields, but if there would be much rain in that year, the giantess would tell Neang Kol Thida to cultivate rice on the high fields. Before long, Neang Kol Thida became a wealthy woman due to productive crops. All the Ineighbors saw that Neang Kol Thida had never Been wrong in doing farming, so they went to ask Her about the reason. Neang Kol Thida told everything to them. After that. when the farming season was approaching. the neighbors always brought food for the giantess to ask her about the rain. Later on. due to being so bored of living in the village where she always heard the sounds of mortars and pestles, the giantess who used to live only in the forest asked for permission from Neang Kol Thida to go to live in the rice fields far away from the villages. Neang Kol Thida then ordered people to build a house for the giantess to live far from the villages. The villagers who had always brought food for the giantess in exchange for information about rain continued to bring food for her at that far paddy field. After the giantess had died, this has become a tradition of making an Offering for the s productive crops.
0 comments:
Post a Comment