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Loy Krathong is a Thai festival that is also celebrated in different places in Malaysia. The name means "to float the krathong". Krathong is a raft with the base made from banana tree trunk, bread, and of late, to the chagrin of environmentalists, styrofoam. The festival takes place on the night of a full moon on the 12th month of the Thai lunar calendar. This coincides with October or November.
Devotee participating in Loy Krathong
Author: Love Krittaya (public domain)
You can observe it in places with a good number of Buddhist temples, such as at Tumpat, Kelantan. In Penang, it is held at Wat Buppharam and Wat Chaiyamangkalaram, where there would be a procession through the streets of George Town, ending at Gurney Drive. There, devotees lower the floral floats, or krathong, in the water, and let it float out into the sea. The act is a way of self-purifying, of drifting away one's anger and defilements, and to start life anew.
The festival of Loy Krathong is traditionally believed to have started during the Sukhothai Period of Thai History. However historians and scholars have recently uncovered evidence that it started much later, during the Bangkok Period. This was derived from the writings of King Rama IV in 1863, which described the festival as Brahmanical, that is, having origins in Hinduism, but has been adapted to Thai Buddhism, as a ceremony to honour Siddhartha Gautama, the original Buddha. The act of drifting a float in the water is also said to venerate Ganga, the Hindu goddess of the River Ganges. The deity is known in Thai as Phra Khongkha.
In Thailand, Loi Krathong coincides with the Northern Thai festival of Yi Peng, where Lanna-style sky lanterns are floated into the air at night.
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