Buddhists offer alms to monks in central Bangkok

BANGKOK, March 18 (TNA) - Devout Buddhists offered alms to 22,600 monks in central Bangkok on Sunday to commemorate the 2600th year anniversary of Lord Buddha’s Enlightenment. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra presided over the ceremony in which monks lined up for alms at three sites including CentralWorld – Thailand’s largest shopping mall – and at Pratunam and Siam Paragon. The alms were offered by people dressed in white. The ceremony was jointly organized by more than 40 agencies including the Prime Minister’s Office, the Bangkok city authority and the National Office of Buddhism. Sunday’s alms offering was part of a project to bestow alms to one million monks in all 77 provinces of Thailand. The ceremony had begun since 2008 and alms received which include dried food, had been given to monks at 286 temples in the four restive southern provinces as well as to people suffering from natural disasters. The alms-giving ceremony would continue in the capital every Saturday and Sunday in the entire month of March. About 90 per cent of some 65 million Thais are Buddhists. (TNA)