Soon kyay or alms-giving ceremony
Description: Soon kyay or alms-giving ceremony
On sacred days or special occasions such as a house- warming, a wedding, a birth, or the seventh day after a death or on monthly and yearly anniversaries, or perhaps just to rid the house of some bad luck, a meal is offered to monks. The ceremony is held either at dawn or before noon, because monks are not allowed to eat solid or semi-solid food after that time.
The food offered is as abundant as the donor can afford with other offerings such as monks' umbrellas, fans or slippers, all of which are very different from those used by laymen. Sometimes a set of the prescribed Eight Articles are presented: the three types of robes, the alms bowl, the razor; the needle, the belt and the sieve. This last is to use before drinking from ponds and streams, not so much a sanitary measure but to avoid swallowing insects, which would be breaking the first precept of not taking life.
Sometimes, money in envelopes will be offered to monks as they are not allowed to handle cash. Towels, soap, bottles of fruit squash and medicine are also usual gifts. Sutras are recited after the meal. Often hundreds of guests are invited to eat after the monks have been escorted back to the monastery.
Book Title : Myanmar Hotels & Tourism Directory 2007-2008.