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Waso Robe Offering Festival in Nationwide
The Waso Robe Offering Festival is a nationwide celebration held on the full moon of Waso, roughly June to July, marking the start of Buddhist Lent and commemorating the Buddha's first sermon to five monks. Laypeople offer new robes and supplies to monks entering their three-month rains retreat, while pilgrims gather wild flowers and sprigs of thabye to present at pagodas. The retreat concludes on the full moon of Thadingyut in October.
Among the fixed points of Myanmar's Buddhist calendar, the full moon of Waso, falling roughly in June or July, holds a particular significance: it commemorates the day the Buddha delivered his first sermon, addressed to five ascetics who had once been his companions, an event traditionally regarded as the founding moment of Buddhist teaching and the origin of the monastic community itself.