Twelve Auspicious Rites

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Girls dressed in ceremonial attire, ready to partake in the ear-boring rite, c. 1912.

The Twelve Auspicious Rites (Burmese: လောကီမင်္ဂလာဆယ့်နှစ်ပါး, လောကီမင်္ဂလာဆယ့်နှစ်ခန်း, and လောကီမင်္ဂလာဆယ့်နှစ်ဖြာ) are a series of worldly rites of passage recognized in traditional Burmese culture, particularly by the Bamar and Rakhine peoples.[1][2][3] These are distinct from the Thirty-eight Buddhist Beatitudes described in the Maṅgala Sutta.[4]

In modern times, only four or five of these rites — the naming, first feeding, ear-boring, shinbyu, and wedding rites — are commonly practiced in Myanmar, especially in urban cities.[5] In pre-colonial Burma, Brahmins typically consecrated or led these rites.[5] Today, masters of ceremony who specialize in abhisheka rituals, called beiktheik saya (ဘိသိက်ဆရာ), consecrate these rites.[4] Beiktheik saya derive their skills from four Vedic scriptures, namely Sāmaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda, and Rigveda, in addition to Pali scriptures.[6] The Twelve Auspicious Rites are believed to have originated in India, and were later spread throughout Southeast Asia by Buddhist missionaries. The rites are based on the teachings of the Buddha and are intended to promote moral and spiritual development, as well as to help individuals attain enlightenment.[7]

  1. ^ "လောကီမင်္ဂလာ (၁၂) ပါး". Yangon Style (in Burmese). Retrieved 2021-01-17.
  2. ^ Spiro, Melford E. (1982-05-27). Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and Its Burmese Vicissitudes. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-04672-6.
  3. ^ Gall, Timothy L.; Gale Research Inc, eds. (1998). "Rakhines". Worldmark encyclopedia of cultures and daily life. Detroit: Gale. ISBN 978-0-7876-0552-0.
  4. ^ a b Houtman, Gustaaf (1999). Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics: Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy. ILCAA. ISBN 978-4-87297-748-6.
  5. ^ a b "မြန်မာတွင် လောကီမင်္ဂလာလေးမျိုးသာပြုလုပ်တော့ဟု ဗြိတိန်မနုဿဗေဒပညာရှင်ဆို". 7Day News - ၇ ရက်နေ့စဉ် သတင်း (in Burmese). Retrieved 2021-01-17.
  6. ^ Houtman, Gustaaf (1990). Traditions of Buddhist Practice in Burma. ILCAA. p. 264.
  7. ^ Bischoff, Roger (1995). Buddhism in Myanmar: A Short History. Buddhist Publication Society. ISBN 978-955-24-0127-5.