The vegetarian festival in Thailand held in the month of October is an event of spirituality together with astounding religious acts that are carried out as devotions to the gods for obtaining blessings. The festival which has its origin from the Chinese immigrants who visited Thailand some time back, has today developed into a fully fledged ceremony with street shows of people in trances as well as religious rituals performed in the temples, in exclusive culinary preparations and people observing certain precepts in view of the event.
Spanning over a nine day period in the ninth month of the Chinese calendar, the festival is the result of the belief that the Chinese immigrants who fell ill with Malaria, recovered due to a religious ritual they observed at the time, especially praying to the Nine emperor gods, with an adherence to a strict vegetarian diet. In the present day, Thai people practice what is known as ‘Jay’ where they restrict themselves to a strict vegetarian diet including the omission of certain pungent spices like garlic that are claimed to arouse a strong passion or anger. They observe some eight precepts, where they also refrain from alcohol and practice meritorious thoughts and deeds and keep themselves clean.
Outside the street, the festival takes a different form, with surprising and self mortification items that devotees perform, that although would be superb for a tourist to observe, is definitely not for the soft hearted. These include body piercing with somewhat less bleeding or scarring as well as walking over burning charcoal while in a trance. These sights are plenty on the road as people perform these acts with the belief that god protects such performers. Taking on a more religious tone, other devotees take their household god statues to the temples for a spiritual cleansing. In the streets, one cannot ignore the aroma of deliciously prepared vegetarian Thai dishes that somehow appear and taste deceivingly like meat.
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Pushpitha Wijesinghe is an experienced independent freelance writer. He specializes in providing a wide variety of content and articles related to the travel hospitality industry.
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Pushpitha Wijesinghe is an experienced independent freelance writer. He specializes in providing a wide variety of content and articles related to the travel hospitality industry. 
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