HOUSEWARMING CEREMONY

HOUSEWARMING CEREMONY

By MEY Sopheakdei

According to Khmer culture and tradition, throughout the country, if any house owner or family has built or bought a house, they must necessarily have a celebration called Housewarming Ceremony before getting to live in. Such a traditional ceremony is believed to bring good luck, happiness and get rid of any catastrophe, and to inform publicly that we are really the owner of the new house and so forth.

During the time to Buddha, there was such a celebration when the Buddha was alive. Having built a meeting hall, the kings of descendants to the Buddha discussed and agreed that before we use the new meeting hall, we had to invite the lord Buddha to sit in the first. Then they invited the Buddha to first sit to bless the king’s families and the Buddha’s disciples.

It is fruitful that housewarming ceremony is done to gather together relative or kindred or friends, to donate things to those who attend the celebration, to offer gifts to monks, to preserve moral five or eight as possible, to hear monks recite a protective prayer, to dedicate generosity to the angel’s village, and to be the one beloved by other people and angels.

Nevertheless, the reason of the celebration is believed that on either new or old house, there is an angel looking after the house everyday or a devil giving troubles to the house owner. That is why, Khmer people like celebrating the housewarming ceremony in order to prevent any danger, disaster, and catastrophe and so on.

So the housewarming ceremony, which Khmer people have done from the ancient time, is because they think that such festivity brings us and our family happiness and prosperous and gets rid of misfortune by the power of the triple jewels: Buddha, The Dharma and The Monkhood, which shows us the right way.