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created by RyoAshikara on 03/02/2025 at 23:53 UTC
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Phra Mae Phosop
For making khwan (Vital Energy) rice or making Pūjā Khwan Mae Phosop, each locality has different rituals or traditions. For example in Pathum Thani province. Must prepare Chalew (Wooden Bamboo Star), Tri-Color Flag, and fragrant powder. With perfumed oils, combs, and mirrors, women are given food and offerings to be placed at the top of the rice fields where the shrine is located. By placing a stick next to the shrine to hang the Chalew containing food offerings, and decorated the tri-colored flag on the top of the pole. Light three incense sticks and pray to the Triple Gem, "Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammā Sambuddhassa" three times, then repeat the words of worship: "Buddha Pūjā, Dhamma Pūjā, Saṅgha Pūjā." Then proceed to say the words calling for Nang Phosop, "Mae Phra Sri, Mae Phra Phosop, Mae Phra Noppadara, I invite you to come and take sacrifice. Sweet and sour food, oily and salty, fragrant bananas, small bananas, elephant tusk bananas (Plantain), and oranges, Dear Mae Phosop, the enlightened Goddess of Prosperity and Mother of Rice, we beckon thee to descend upon the paddies and accept our offerings of food to appease your appetite for sweet, sour, and savory dishes. All who live here welcome you dear Mother. Please eat and bless us with a good harvest, free from disaster. Please fill our wicker baskets with your rice. Please allow the rice we are growing to blossom like galangals across the paddy fields. Please come and accept these sacrifices for you, and happily live with your children, and grandchildren, holding a gold-topped staff and a diamond-tipped baton. Please come here now!”
Then proceed to put some fragrant oil on the rice leaves and use a wooden comb to comb them. Take rice flour and sprinkle it on the sacrifice. When finished, shout "KU!" three times and then walk away. Do not look back, because Mrs. Phosop would be embarrassed and not come to receive the sacrifice. Only women can perform this ritual, unless one is mixed gender/mixed khwan.
Known as Nang Khosop in Laos, the rice goddess is also part of the local rural culture. There are different versions of the Laotian origin myth regarding rice. According to a manuscript in Wat Si Saket, after a thousand-year famine one day a young man caught a golden fish. The king of the fishes heard the cry of agony and went to ask the man to free the golden fish in exchange for a treasure. The treasure was Nang Khosop, the maiden who was the embodiment of the spiritual energy of the rice. Nang Khosop was known to have guarded many objects of gold, jewelry, and gems, as rice was a symbol of wealth, and was used as a currency for those who did not have coins, or silver. While she lived in the fields, rice nourished humans for many more centuries and the Buddhist doctrine progressed. But one day an unrighteous king brought about a famine on the land by storing the rice that was due to the people in order to acquire gold, elephants and luxury goods for himself. During the hard days of the famine an old couple met Bu Lersi Ta Fai in the forest.
Seeing that they were famished, the hermit appealed to Nang Khosop to feed them. But the rice goddess was angry and refused, this was due to the mistreatment of the king to the rice paddies. Then the hermit, fearing for the future of the Buddhist Dhamma, as well as the welfare of the people, slaughtered Nang Khosop and cut her into many little pieces. As a consequence, the fragments of the rice goddess became the different varieties of rice such as black rice, white rice, hard rice (khâo chao) and glutinous rice. The old couple taught humans how to cultivate this new rice in small grains and the Buddhist doctrine flourished. Nang Khosop became an enlightened deity by the subjugation by Bu Lersi Ta Fai, and became the tutelary guardian of rice, and grains.
According to another legend of the Vientiane region the Phi Na (Spirit of the Rice Field), a tutelary spirit that looks after the rice fields originated in the skull, the mouth and the teeth of Nang Khosop.
Nang Khosops vehicle is a golden fish (Clown Featherback), and she is adorned with holding the grain of rice in her right hand, while her left hand is in the position of beckoning. Her consort is Phra Mahachai Phraisop, who is the young man who caught the golden fish in the story. With the adoption of Brahmanism, it is believed that Nang Khosop is an emanation of Vara Lakṣmī, in the textbook of images of idols (ตำราภาพเทวรูป), her consort, Phra Mahachai Phraisop appears as one of Vara Nārāyaṇas emanation.
Gāthā to Pūjā Phra Mae Phosop:
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammāsaṃbuddhassa (Recite Three Times)
Posava Pochanaṃ | (No English Translation)
Uttama Labbhāṃ Mayhaṃ Sabba Siddhi Hontu | | Most excellent possible of mine, Who exists of all the Accomplishments!
There's nothing here!
