The Moon, beliefs and rites of Cambodia
The Cambodian moon is an ambiguous moon. Sometimes female, sometimes male..., her sex is not defined once and for all.
It is possible that the conservation of these two aspects is the effect of the double influence between India, where the moon is a male deity, and China, where it is still female.
On the other hand, its beneficial character is perfectly clear: The Cambodian moon is generous Calendar personified, the moon punctuated the events of private and public life. When other civilizations symbolically represent the star of the nights by a fruit, an eye, a drop, a sickle, a boat, the cambodian artists have only held her light of silver, fresh like crystal, and which lasts nine hundred thousand years.
In the representation of the Khmer, the moon is light.
The Legends of the origin of the moon connect her almost always to the sun, make the two stars of the brothers
A third brother usually appears: Rahu, the eclipse monster.
According to an old Cambodian legend, the sun, the fire, the thunder, the wind, the rain, the star rahu, the moon, were seven brothers, the night star being of all the youngest.
All invited to dinner at a Lord, only the moon set aside provisions for his mother, widow and alone at home. The Brothers-in-law wanted to take over these reservations, and a fight was Moon managed to run away to carry the cakes to his mother. Every time moon shines, we are happy and every year we celebrate a greetings party to the Lord moon, to thank him for his kindness, and to honor his feelings of filial piety.
Other Legends, in connection with eclipses, specify the origin of the moon: Sun, moon and rahu are usually brothers, the latter swallowing the first two and causing eclipses either by anger or by fraternal tenderness. It also happens that moon and sun are quoted one after another without any precision of kinship:
Originally, the earth spread a strong smell, similar to that of caramel, and it was immersed in absolute darkness. A genius, attracted by this good smell, wanted to eat some of the earth. But his body, which was bright, was extinguished. He was taken from a great fear. Then the great tevoda sent him prah atit, the sun, to shed light on the day, and prah chan, the moon in his silver tank, to illuminate it at night.
Royal Greeting to the moon
For the party "greetings to the moon and the chokage of the ambok" (1), a priest came to present the water lustral in a conch inlaid with gold, enamelled with green, White, red and laid on a small Solid Gold Cup. The King gently wet his palms, raised his hands to the moon, then wetted his face. After a moment of contemplation and tribute, the king spray the royal children prostrate before him by means of leaves of phnou (Tree Tree, aegle marmelos) dipped in the water.
(1) new rice, moderately roasted, then crushed to the drumstick while still hot.
The Lord moon and the people of the campaigns
It is especially in the countryside that the khmer people pay tribute to the moon. On the places of the villages, most often in the court of Buddhist monasteries, or simply in front of a house, we salute the prah chan, the prah khê, the Augustus Moon, the Lord moon
Invocation to the Lord moon
"Today is the day of the full moon of the month of kadek. Today in every family, in every village, we do what we do here. We invite the gods of heaven to come and take their share of these bananas, of this ambok grilled by us, crushed by us. Come and drink the water of this coconut and protect us, make us happy in this life and our goods grow in our hands! Be Our Protector, beautiful and good moon, keep light the world when the sun has plunged to the west, so that darkness does not cover earth!"
The variants of the party are numerous and it is not uncommon for monks of Buddhist monasteries to participate, reciting prayers in pale to the glory of the moon, including the chanbaret (of Pali-Parittam), chanting also at the time of Eclipses.
In the province of kandal take place in conjunction with greetings to the moon of canoe races where take music orchestras and the great tambourssayam, which are replicas of the feast of waters celebrated in Phnom Penh."
Buddhist interpretation of the moon party
Cambodians give this party a Buddhist explanation, referring to the jâtaka or "Renaissance", texts relating to the previous lives of the bruddah. One of these texts, which we have already spoken much about and founded one of the main legends of the lunar hare, says that the Buddha would have reincarnated in the form of a hare and would have given his life, by compassion, to a hunter. He would have made a wish before his sacrifice, the one that his image if in the disc of the moon where one can currently discern it, say by common Cambodian, Lao and Vietnamese agreement. But this explanation is superimposed on the fundamental nature of greetings, that of a fertility rite for earth and prosperity for human beings.
Conclusion
In Cambodia, the moon looks at the same serene eye the gods and men, marries one, feeds the others, illuminates the worlds [...] sometimes male sometimes female, the moon is the basis of a dualism between social groups, And once determined the dynastic rules and marriage unions. The Moon is, however, a beneficial star, with prosperity; it is associated with rain, harvest, fertility of the earth and living beings [...] male or female, Lord of heaven or woman-Snake, generous and a Nothing mischievous, tinged with magic, slightly veiled of Buddhism, swallowed by a monster and rescued by the monks, the moon of the khmer country is an ambiguous moon, of a complex nature, adorned with all the wealth of Cambodian beliefs
All these extracts are derived / adapted from: the moon, beliefs and rites of Cambodia, by Eveline Incorporated-Maspero and solange Bernard-Thierry (in the moon - myths and rites, Collection Oriental Sources, Paris, Threshold, 1962)