The Meaning Of The Scripts On This Document?

[wedders]

I'm assuming that the Thai at the top is a translation of the Burmese (?) beneath, but I really haven't a clue to be honest. A Brahmin was reading from this during a foundation stone laying ceremony - I'm just curious as to what was being said

[tgeezer]

I'm assuming that the Thai at the top is a translation of the Burmese (?) beneath, but I really haven't a clue to be honest. A Brahmin was reading from this during a foundation stone laying ceremony - I'm just curious as to what was being said

This says that: a text in Pali language the next four words 'big' to be used at the annual ceremony to honour teachers is as follows, Maybe at these affairs they lay a stone but I shouldn't think so. The writing should be Pali then, which I assume monks can read.

[meadish_sweetball]

As far as I can tell it looks like Lanna script - ตั๋วเมือง http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanna_script

I cannot read it but I recognize it from inscriptions and an exercise book I picked up a few months ago with the intent to learn to read it.

The Thai headline:

[M]khaa[R]thaa [H]ma[R]haa[L]sit[H]thi [RL]luang [H]chai [R]sam[H]rap [H]yok [M]khruu [M]mii [M]dang [LL]taw [M]pai [H]nii

'khaathaa' is akin to 'spell'/'invocation', so the whole sentence could be something like "The 'Great bestowing of privilege' invocation used during the ceremony of honouring a teacher reads as follows:"

This is just a half-arsed attempt at a translation - I don't know exactly what 'mahaasitthi' signifies here. 'mahaa' means 'great' and 'sithi' usually means 'right'; 'privilege' and 'yok' can be 'raise'; 'praise' etc, so tgeezer is likely right when he pinpoints it as a ceremony for honouring a teacher.

'luang' is 'great' or 'major' and could indicate that this is the 'major' incantation as opposed to a 'minor' one, alternatively just an add-on to emphasize the 'greatness' of the invocation.

[5tash]

... 'ok' can be 'raise'; 'praise' etc, so tgeezer is likely right when he pinpoints it as a ceremony for honouring a teacher.

From Lexitron:

ยกครู [V] perform the ceremony of showing respects to teachers.

[wedders]

Thanks. The brahmin was sat for an hour at a table on a building site next door reading from this, doing the bowl of water with candle stuck to the rim stuff, incense, various symbolic flowers. Then palm fronds/bananas/coconuts were tied to the first steel struts prior to being set in concrete. The family were there, all sorts of rituals were carried out during a ceremony that lasted a couple of hours all told.

Before the concrete was poured (the first bucketful by the lady owner), money and gold were wrapped in what looked like waterlily leaves, before being placed in the foundations. Marigold petals were scattered.

Fascinating stuff - superstition is alive and well in 'fast-modernising' Thailand, even amongst the rich upper middle class Thai elite.

The first 22 photos on my flickr album give a glimpse of key moments of the ceremony, although they're in reverse time order - best to start with blessing_001 and work back to make sense of it.

Edited November 26, 2008 by wedders

[sabaijai]

In this context มหาสิทธิหลวง means 'of great authority' or 'fully accomplished', in other words, 'The authoritative/fully accomplished verse to be used' etc same as mentioned.

[tgeezer]

Thanks. The brahmin was sat for an hour at a table on a building site next door reading from this, doing the bowl of water with candle stuck to the rim stuff, incense, various symbolic flowers. Then palm fronds/bananas/coconuts were tied to the first steel struts prior to being set in concrete. The family were there, all sorts of rituals were carried out during a ceremony that lasted a couple of hours all told.

Before the concrete was poured (the first bucketful by the lady owner), money and gold were wrapped in what looked like waterlily leaves, before being placed in the foundations. Marigold petals were scattered.

Fascinating stuff - superstition is alive and well in 'fast-modernising' Thailand, even amongst the rich upper middle class Thai elite.

The first 22 photos on my flickr album give a glimpse of key moments of the ceremony, although they're in reverse time order - best to start with blessing_001 and work back to make sense of it.

I hope this doesn't sound too cynical but you don't suppose he was being hired by the yard of script and just had to fill the time, few people understand the chants afterall, but I love them.

[wedders]

tgeezer, I watched - I thought unseen - the whole ceremony, and there wasn't a hint of any cynicism or flippancy, behind the Brahmin's back, before, during, or after he'd gone. The Brahmin himself was a study in concentration throughout.

I'm not one for superstitions, and I was almost certain that courtesy of my zoom lens no one had seen me snapping away... but check out the full resolution version of this photo, just look at her eyes! I hope the matriarch wasn't placing some sort of curse on me...

Think I might have to go and place a few garlands and glasses of Sang Som in their spirit house to ward off evil ghosts for a few nights...

Edited November 26, 2008 by wedders

[tgeezer]

My remark was aimed more toward the monk but it was unworthy of me, to make jokes about faith. It occurs to me that we have the better resource at hand in the Bhuddist forum if you would like to research it more. Good luck

[Richard W]

This says that: a text in Pali language the next four words 'big' to be used at the annual ceremony to honour teachers is as follows, Maybe at these affairs they lay a stone but I shouldn't think so. The writing should be Pali then, which I assume monks can read.

While the text is mostly Pali, there are actually some bits of (Northern) Thai embedded it. I transliterate the text that is in the Lanna script as follows, converting clear spaces into line breaks. I've used the Harvard-Kyoto convention. except that I transcribe the Pali /o/ vowel as 'O' to distinguish from the short Tai vowel. Notes are labelled by letters.

Line 1:

namO (A)

3

hon (

Osvassati cakkhu devatA (C )

siddhi vijjArambham

karissAmiti

Line 2:

siddhi bhavantume

siddhi bhavantute

siddhi bhavantuvO (D)

siddhi kiccaM

siddhi kammaM

Line 3:

siddhi tejaM

siddhi lAbhaM

siddhi tathAgatO

siddhi itipisO (E)

bhagavA

Line 4:

sirOme

buddhavante

narAthe

brohma (F) datte

bissnU (G) kaDDheva (H) siddhime

Notes:

A) This is the only instance of the long vowel /o/ being written in the nomal way for Pali, i.e. as the (2-element) equivalent of sara ao (เ-า). Elsewhere, the dependent vowel is written in the same same way as for Tai languages, equivalent to Thai sara o (โ).

hon is a northern Thai word meaning 'time', 'occasion'.

C) The vowel /o/ here is the independent vowel, and Northern Thai practice makes no distinction between Pali and Tai.

D) There might be a mai kam (=anusvara = nikkhahit = niggahita) on the last syllable, but I think it's just a mark on the cardboard (palm leaf?) or lens.

E) 'itipisO' might be a misreading of 'banatipisO' with missing ellipsis mark (mai sam). If I have read it right, the independent vowel is a little unusual - it usually looks like 'bGa' rhather than 'bna'.

F) This word is written with the short vowel mai kong, so might be intended to be read as /phom/ corresponding to Siamese พรหม 'Brahma'. (The Maefaluang dictionary spells the word <brhom>.)

G) <bissnU> is the normal Northern Thai spelling of 'Vishnu' - cf. Phitsanulok. The doubling of the <s> as the first element of orthographic clusters is common.

H) The first letter may be 'b' rather than 'k'. What I have read as 'DDhe' might be 'jjhe' or 'jjha' - the form of the ligature is unusual.