Full-Moon Day Brings Sri Lanka to Halt

On every full-moon day, bells ring out from Sri Lanka’s Buddhist temples to summon the faithful to renew pledges of their belief, and the country comes to a halt.

The day of Poya, meaning phase of the moon, begins just before the night breaks into dawn.

Devotees, mostly old women and children, wear white clothes and carry white frangipani and lotus flowers as offerings in temples.

The full moon is the phase under which Buddha was said to have been born, enlightened and attained nirvana (the state of bliss) 2,500 years ago.

Official Holiday

In Sri Lanka, whose folklore says that Buddha visited it three times, full-moon day is an officially declared holiday.

Banks, offices, shops, theaters, clubs, casinos, discotheques and bars are compelled to take the day off.

Serving drinks in restaurants is prohibited, and regular television programs are replaced by sermons on Buddhism presented by monks in saffron robes.

In some countryside hotels, a sign is put out on the eve of official Poya day to remind guests that drinks won’t be served.

Beer in Teapots

Tourists get around it by ordering the day before and drinking in their rooms. Foreign residents say that a few restaurants in Colombo try to be discreet by serving beer in teapots.

The sale of meat, though officially taboo, goes on. But a ban on cattle slaughter is strictly observed in keeping with the Buddhist doctrine not to cause pain to man or animals.

With all amusement and entertainment establishments shut, residents in the capital generally stay at home.

Some go to temples to observe the sill , a prayer ritual in which a devotee vows again to follow Buddhist precepts and ends with the rubbing of oil or water on the head.

In the villages, Buddhists religiously observe the sill . “There are some people who don’t miss a single Poya,” an editor of a Sinhala language newspaper said.

Pause in War

Everything is deceptively still for one day on the Indian Ocean island, which for the last four years has suffered through a war between government troops and guerrillas fighting for a separate state for minority Tamils in the northern and eastern provinces.

There might be gunfire in the combat zones. But in the rest of the country, murmured prayers and monotone chants rendered in the ancient Pali language echo through the temples, becoming louder as the moon shapes into a circle.

Poya holidays started in 1966 when the government bowed to pressure from monks by replacing Saturdays and Sundays with the start of each moon phase and the preceding day as the weekly days off.

“That move created havoc in business,” a Chamber of Commerce official said. “Sometimes our businessmen were out of touch for four days with the rest of the world.

“There were times Poya fell on a Tuesday, which meant Monday was also a holiday. The rest of the world rested on Saturdays and Sundays and we could only start work here on Wednesday.”

Tradition Restored

In 1970, the two traditional rest days were restored and Poya holidays were limited only to full-moon days.

“It was common sense,” a businessman said. “Even the government machinery was upset with the changing Poya days.”

In a country in which 7 of 10 people are Buddhists, it would be political suicide for any government to scrap the full-moon day holidays.

Nearly all Buddhists on the island are Sinhalese, who make up 74% of the 15 million population. Tamils, who are mostly Hindus, form 18% and the rest are Muslims.