Yesterday morning Tawn called and told me to turn on the television: I was missing the Royal Ploughing Ceremony, called แรกนาขวัญ – “Raeknakwan”.  Sure enough, being covered on all the local stations was a live broadcast from Sanam Luang, the Royal Parade Grounds in front of the Grand Palace, of this Bhramanist ceremony.  (Pictures were taken of my TV screen, explaining the low quality.)

Thailand is the world’s largest exporter of rice, although not the largest cultivator of it.  Despite economic development in the past few decades, a majority of the Thai people still earn their living either directly or indirectly from agriculture.  As such, festivals and ceremonies associated with farming still play a central role in Thai culture.

(Left: The Crown Prince hands declarations out to representatives of each of the 76 provinces, most of them are citizen farmers.)

The Royal Ploughing Ceremony marks the beginning of the rice planting season, which coincides with the rainy season.  This ceremony is taken to ensure a bountiful harvest and is performed on an auspicious date in the sixth month of the lunar calendar, usually falling in early May.  The ceremony dates back to the Sukhothai period (1257-1350 AD) but faded out towards the end of the reign of King Prajadhipok (Rama VII) in the early 1960s. It was revived by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 1960.  Since then, it has been observed annually.

Today, the Royal Ploughing Ceremony consists of two ceremonies conducted on consecutive days.  Both royal ceremonies are state events with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture assuming the role of the Lord of the Harvest, a representative of the King.  Additionally, four single female officials of the Ministry undertake the role of the Celestial Maidens, assistants to the Lord of the Harvest.   All are dressed in traditional clothing.

The first ceremony is a Cultivating Ceremony known as “Phraraj Pithi Peud Mongkol”.  The Cultivating Ceremony is a Buddhist ritual that was added by during the reign of King Rama IV.   Rice and the seeds of forty other crops and ceremonial items to be used in the Ploughing Ceremony are blessed in religious rites performed in the Royal Chapel of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

(Right: the Royal Pavillion where the Lord of the Harvest reports the results to the Crown Prince.  Notice the three furrows that have been ploughed in the field.)

The second is the Ploughing Ceremony, “Phraraj Pithi Jarod Phranangkal Raek Na Kwan”.  The ceremony is held the next morning at Sanam Luang, the Royal Parade Grounds.  It begins with the Lord of the Harvest performing a rite to predict the amount of rainfall in the coming season by selecting one of three pieces of cloth of varying lengths:

• If the Ploughing Lord picks a piece of cloth measuring four palm spans, there will be more water. Farming on high land will bear good yields, while farming on low land might face some flooding.
• If the Ploughing Lord chooses a piece of cloth measuring five palms, the prophecy is that water supply will be just about right, rice plantations will yield good output and other food will also be abundant.
• If the Ploughing Lord selects a piece of cloth measuring six palms, water will be scarce. Farming on low land will bear good yields, but farming on high land will not bring good results.

At the auspicious time following the arrival of His Majesty the Crown Prince, the Lord of the Harvest begins to plough the field with a traditional wooden plow led by two royal oxen.  He circles the field three times, then sows rice seeds from the baskets carried by the Celestial Maidens. 

At the end of the ceremony, the oxen are brought a tray with seven banana left baskets, each containing a different offering of food or drink: rice, green beans, corn, hay, sesame seed, water and liquor.  Predictions regarding the success of the harvest and the abundance of particular crops in the coming season are determined by the items selected by the oxen.

(Above: A member of the Ministry of Agriculture holds the tray of seven types of food and drink for one of the royal oxen.)

If the Sacred Cows eat rice or corn, the prophecy is that the rice harvests will be abundant. 

• If they eat green beans or sesame, rice harvests will be abundant and the food that we eat every day will also be available throughout the country. 
• If they drink water or eat grass, water will be abundant, while harvests, food production and the food that we eat every day will be rich in supply. 
• If they drink the liquor, transportation will be convenient and commerce with foreign countries will be prosperous.

Tawn points out that all the choices are good one: there’s no way for them to forecast negative news.

After the ceremony is over and the Crown Prince has left, the barricades are removed and hundreds and hundreds of people – many of them farmers from the different provinces – rush into the field hoping to gather a few sacred rice grains scattered by the Lord of Harvest.

(Right: The crowd converges on the field to scramble for grains of auspicious rice, quite literally a land rush.)

“The cow ate the rice,” Tawn messaged me on my phone, “How macrobiotic of him.”

Reported from this morning’s Bangkok Post:

During the ceremony at Sanam Luang yesterday morning, the sacred oxen, Therd and Thun [they have names!], chose rice, maize and grass to eat from among the various food offerings. As a result, the court astrologer predicted there will be crops, grain and livestock in abundance this year, as well as sufficient water for farming.

Sounds like good news.