YANGON, Myanmar —
Thousands of
Buddhist devotees thronged Myanmar’s Shwedagon Pagoda to mark the
full moon of the Thadingyut festival on Sunday, some offering prayers for a
country plunged into turmoil by last year’s coup.
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The three-day
festival marks Buddha’s descent from heaven and is normally marked by riotous
fireworks displays, with candles and colorful lanterns lighting up streets and
homes.
Early morning
crowds lined up in commercial hub Yangon to pray at the towering, gold-plated
Shwedagon pagoda, Myanmar’s most important Buddhist site. Local chronicles say
it contains strands of the Buddha’s hair.
Crowds packed in
shoulder-to-shoulder to file up escalators and ascend the pointed structure
that dominates the skyline of the country’s largest city.
Inside the main
complex crowds shuffled along in gentle circumambulation, some stopping to take
selfies, light candles or burn incense.
Others stood aside
to say quiet prayers.
“We haven’t come
here for years and so we left home early to avoid crowds but there were already
many people at the pagoda,” said a man from Yangon’s Thone Gwa township. He did
not want to give his name.
“I think people are
struggling in their daily lives and they wanted to come out from home.”
A Buddhist monk visits Shwedagon pagoda to mark the full moon of the Thadingyut festival in Yangon on October 9, 2022.
The country has
been in turmoil since the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in
2021, with fighting continuing across many regions and the economy in tatters.
To mark Thadingyut
last year the junta announced an amnesty for hundreds of protesters detained
since the coup, sending families rushing to prison gates and sparking joyful
reunions across the country.
The junta has so
far not announced any amnesty to mark this year’s three-day festival, which
ends on Monday.
“I pray for people
who are displaced,” one woman told AFP amid the slowly moving crowds, asking
not to use her name.
“I want to see our
country at peace but all I can do on this full moon day is to pray.”
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