CHT Desk
Mahaa Wagyawai Powe, one of the traditional festivals of indigenous Marma community celebrates in Bandarban every year amidst festivity.
The three-day festival is celebrated to welcome Probarana Purnima, the second largest festival in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Shuvo Probarona Purnima, also known as Ashwini Purnima, marks the conclusion of the three-month long seclusion of the monks inside their monasteries for self-edification and atonement of defilement.
Later, the month long Kathin Chibar Dan is followed by Probarana Purnima, where devotees donate (dan) robes (cloth) to the monks for the welfare of every being and entire mankind.
In the course of the three-day celebrations, the indigenous Buddhists offer Pradeep (candle) Puja, organise traditional cultural programmes, perform rituals, a cake festival, take out chariot in the district town, and release colourful paper lanterns (Fanush) in the evening.
A number of tourists from home and abroad join in with the indigenous devotees to enjoy the century-old festival.
Buddhists devotees release thousands of colourful paper lanterns (Fanush) that evening from Puraton Rajar Math and Raj Vihar in Bandarban.
On the auspicious day, monks of a temple go to their “Ordination Hall” and request one another to show the right path if they have committed any mistake in their way of living instructed by Lord Buddha.
As a legend says Buddha once clipped some strands of his hair and said that if he were qualified to attain supreme wisdom and enlightenment, the hair would not fall down, it would rather go up. To mark the event, Buddhists ignite and release paper lanterns in the sky.
The devotees pray to Gautam Buddha, seeking divine blessings for peace, prosperity and communal harmony in the region.
Later, the festivities end with Ratha yatra, in which devotees pull a chariot around the district town and then submerge it into the Sangu River.
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