Celebrating Vesak in April, a joke – prelate
Posted on April 23rd, 2018
By Cyril Wimalasurendra Courtesy The Island
April 23, 2018, 11:54 pm
All other Buddhist nations, the world over, are making grand preperations to celebrate Vesak Poya Day, on May 29, and it is absurd for Sri Lanka to celebrate Vesak on April 29, Malwatte Anunayake Ven. Niyangoda Sri Vijithasiri Thera says.
Even the international Vesak Day was celebrated, on May 29, the Thera said yesterday. “According to tradition, Sri Lankans celebrate Vesak in May. However, the government has decided to celebrate Vesak in April. No one has the right to change the Vesak Poya Day.”
“The Poya Day, which falls on April 29, is the Bak Poya Day. Although there is nothing wrong with considering it an ‘Adhi Pasaloswaka Poya Day,’ it cannot be regarded as the Vesak Poya Day. Adhi Poya occurs, when two full moon days fall in the same month.”
Ven. Vijithasiri Thera said: “Buddhists, in other countries, including Thailand, Cambodia, Tibet, Vietnam, China, Myanmar and India, celebrate the Vesak on the Poya Day, which falls in May. Sri Lankan Mahanayaka and Anunayake Theras have been invited to the International Vesak Celebrations, to be held on May 29.”
Visakha Puja Day (Wesak Day)
You may also read on the Self Practice During Wesak (Visakha) Day.
The Visakha Puja or the Full Moon Day of the sixth lunar month is considered the most important the reason being that three unique events concerning the Buddha occurred on such Full Moon day of that month. Firstly, Queen Maha Maya gave birth to a son, Prince Siddhattha on the Full Moon Day of the lunar month of May. Secondly, thirty five years later the Prince, on the Full Moon Day of May became the Buddha, the Awakened One. Thirdly, forty five years later on the Full Moon Day of May, the Englightened One passed away.
His teaching, doctrine and discipline have attained universal recognition and have become memorials to him. As Buddhists know, the personal name of Lord Buddha was Siddhatta Gotama, and taht he was the only son of King Suddhodana and Queen Maha Maya of the Sakyan. The Prince was born under a banyan tree in the Lumbini Grove located between the two cities of Kapilavatthu and Devadaha. Seven days after his birth, his mother passed away and so he was nurtured by his foster mother, Maha Pajapati Gotami who was the youngest sister of his father.
At the age of sixteen the Prince married the beautiful Princess Yasodhara, the daughter of King Suppabuddha of the Kolyan. Thirteen years of luxurious married life gave the Prince adequate experience in realisation of the insubstantiality of worldly life. At twenty nine, not long after his wife Yasodhara had given birth to a son, Rahula, the Prince decided to renounce wordly life for a homeless one devoting himself to a disciplined quest for spiritual satisfaction. He spoke to his disciples about the two possible goals to which men devote their lives, that is, the noble or holy quest as described in the Ariyapariyesana Sutta, and the ignoble or unholy quest. Due to the delusion of self man is subject to Dukkha (suffering or a sense of unsatisfactoriness) which is clearly evident in the process of decay and death. The ignoble quest, to which many devote their lives, consists in seeking after things or states which are really unsatisfactory due to their inherent state of flux or change, the very conditions from which deliverance is needed.
April 23rd, 2018 at 4:39 pm
Why the Vesak was advanced to April?
The Vesak poya falls naturally on the 29th May which by means that the Vesak should be in the month of May according to Julian calendar we follow worldwide. Form time and memory there had been no shifting of Vesak (or even Poson) festival.
Since the Yahapaalana govt. came in to power, it is taking all decisions and acting on behalf of Tamils and Muslims and persecuting majority Sinhelaya and destroying and attacking Buddhism. (While the Temples, places of worship and Historical sites being destroyed and bulldozed by Tamils and Muslims, yet the Yahapaalana govt. asks Sinhela Buddhist people surrender and reconcile with Tamils and Muslims.
This year the Ramadan supposed to be started on 17th May which will go on for the next 29 days, the Muslims opposed and does not want the Vesak festival come in between their Ramadan period where the 29th May Poya falls right in the middle of their fasting.
The Sirisena – Ranil alliance knowing but maliciously agreed to the Muslim demand and shifted the Vesak to April, whatever arguments and theories brought in to justify this, the bottom line is that Sinhelaya and Buddhism being decimated and destroyed under this Anti Sinhala, Anti Buddhist govt.