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While this is basically a monks' ceremony involving the laity mostly in an enlargement of their daily habitual practice of offering food to monks early in the mornings, in certain places in Thailand it takes on the character of an all our fair. Uthai Thani, north of Bangkok, is a place that celebrates
Tak Bat Devo with unusual ceremonies, with the monks in the vicinity climbing to the top of a hill representing the Buddha's ascent, and then coming down to the massive offerings set out by the common folk, as the Buddha himself was believed to have done.
Other, extraneous elements have become mixed into this remembrance, as is typical of all ancient rites. In this case, a visitor will see an unusual display of elepant's tusks, some almost unbelievably huge, peacocks' tails spread out in colourful glory, ancient ceramicware, much of it from the days of imperial
China and which remind the viewer that much of Thai culture derives from those two nearly-adjacent lands, India and China, and indeed may be better preserved in Thailand than it the original homelands.
This year, Tak Bat Devo will be celebrated in many neighbourhoods on the morning of October, and in Uthai Thani the traditional provincial ceremony will be reenacted, yet another link between the present and the remote past one so often finds in the lands of Asia.
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Monks descend from a hilltop temple, to receive offerings from local people
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