10/09/2021
The Spiritual Dimensions of Rice, Food, and Prosperity Culture in SEA!🧡
Thailand: "Phosop"
Phosop or Phaisop is the rice goddess of the Thai people. She is a deity more related to ancient Thai folklore than a goddess of a structured, mainstream religion. She is also known as Mae Khwan Khao "Mother of Rice Prosperity".
Ritual offerings are made to propitiate the Rice Goddess during the different steps of rice production. Villagers believe that Phosop ensures everyone has enough to eat.
In modern Thailand, paying homage to Phosop by rice farmers had been declining in recent times, but Queen Sirikit gave royal patronage to this ancient custom of Thai folklore in August 2008.
These traditional celebrations related to rice and its cultivation stages have a deep traditional significance in order to ensure that farmers will have good harvests.
The iconographic representation of Phosop is of a beautiful woman wearing full jewelry and a red or green dress. She is in the sitting or standing position holding a harvested rice sheaf on her right shoulder, but sometimes also resting on her arm. The recent iconography of this goddess is based on the devī of Hinduism but its origins are local and more ancient.
In certain locations, a young village woman may dress as Phosop during local rice harvest festivals and celebrations.
Laos: "Khosop"
Khosop or Nang Khosop in Laos, the rice goddess is also part of the local rural culture. There are different versions of the Laotian origin myth regarding rice. According to a manuscript in Wat Si Saket, after a thousand-year famine one day a young man caught a golden fish. The king of the fishes heard the cry of agony and went to ask the man to free the golden fish in exchange for a treasure. The treasure was Nang Khosop, the maiden who was the soul of the rice. While she lived in the fields rice nourished humans for many more centuries and the Buddhist doctrine progressed. But one day an unrighteous king brought about again a famine on the land by storing the rice that was due to the people in order to acquire gold, elephants, and luxury goods for himself. During the hard days of the famine, an old couple of slaves met a hermit in the forest. Seeing that they were famished the hermit appealed to Nang Khosop to feed them. But the rice goddess was angry and refused. Then the hermit, fearing for the future of the Buddhist Dharma, slaughtered Nang Khosop and cut her into many little pieces. As a consequence, the fragments of the rice goddess became the different varieties of rice such as black rice, white rice, hard rice (khâo chao), and glutinous rice. The old couple taught humans how to cultivate this new rice in small grains and the Buddhist doctrine flourished.
According to another legend of the Vientiane region the Phi Na, a tutelary spirit that looks after the rice fields originated in the skull, the mouth, and the teeth of Nang Khosop
Indonesia: "Dewi Sri"
Dewi Sri or Shridevi, Nyai Pohaci Sanghyang Asri (Sundanese) is the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese pre-Hindu and pre-Islam goddess of rice and fertility, still widely worshiped on the islands of Bali and Java, Indonesia.
The cult of the rice goddess has its origin in the prehistoric domestication, development and propagation of rice cultivation in Asia, possibly brought by Austroasiatic or Austronesian population that finally migrated and settled in the archipelago. Similar but slightly different rice spirits mythologies are widespread among Indonesian ethnicities and also neighboring countries.
Although the mythology of Dewi Sri is native to Java, after the adoption of Hinduism in the archipelago as early as the first century, she was equated with the Hindu goddess Shri Lakshmi, and often regarded as an incarnation or one of her manifestations, as both are associated with wealth and family prosperity. Thus subsequently her iconography and depictions adopted the typical Hindu goddess attribute, style and aesthetic.
Philippines: "Lakapati"
Ikapati is an ancient Tagalog Goddess also known as Lakapati. Lakapati is “the Goddess of fertility and the most understanding and kind of all the deities. Also known as Ikapati, She was the giver of food and prosperity. Her best gift to mankind was agriculture (cultivated fields). Through this, She was respected and loved by the people. Later, She was married to Mapulon and had a daughter.”
“Ikapati’s themes are prayer, harvest, thanksgiving, luck and protection. Her symbols are harvested foods. In the language of the Philippines, this Goddess’s name literally means ‘giver of food’, making Her the provider of the Misa de Gallo! She diligently promotes abundance of fields and crops, and She protects farm animals from disease.
When the sun begins to rise today, people take to the streets with all manner of noise makers to invoke Ikapati’s protection and to banish evil influences that might hinder next year’s crops. Effectively, even in more Christianized forms, this is a lavish harvest festival in which Filipinos thank the divine for their fortune and food, which is always a worthy endeavor.
We can join the festivities today by eating the customary rice cakes to internalize Ikapati’s providence and drinking ginger tea for health and energy. It is traditional during this meal to invite the Goddess to join you at the table. Just leave her a plate and cup filled with a portion of whatever you have.
Tonight, consign this offering to the earth, where Ikapati dwells (or to your compost heap), and whisper a wish for improved luck to the soil. The Goddess will then accept the gift and turn it into positive energy for the planet and your life.”
Cambodia: "Po Ino Nogar"
Cambodia’s closest equivalent goddess of Rice seems to be Po Ino Nogar, whose name means “great one” in Khmer, and is sometimes associated with the Hindu goddess Uma. Po Ino Nogar is revered because she brings fertility and agricultural bounty to the earth and its people. Like the heavenly apsaras seen at Angkor Wat, she is also associated with the sky, clouds and water, and is sometimes symbolized as a gentle rain.
It is interesting to note that Po Ino Nogar is polyandrous, with 97 husbands. She also has 38 daughters, one of whom, Po Yan Dari, is supposedly a goddess of disease and death who lives in caves and grottos. However, in a Cham version of this tale, the daughter is named Pajau Tan, and she is seen as a divine healer. According to that legend, Pajau Tan was so successful raising the dead that she disrupted normal life and was finally sent to live on the moon. Another daughter of Po Ino Nogar is “the Mouse Queen” (Po Bya Tikuh), perhaps related because of the threat mice pose to the rice crop.
Vietnam: "Thien Y S Na"
Thiên Y A Na is a Vietnamese goddess. She is worshipped in the Vietnamese folk religion and Đạo Mẫu, the mother goddess religion. She is also known as Lady Po Nagar, the Cham deity from whom she originated. The Cham people of Vietnam had been much influenced by India, and it is believed that Pô Nagar is represented with the characteristics of Bhagavati Uma. The cult of Thiên Y A Na is popular in Vietnam, particularly among women. She is channeled through Lên đồng rituals. There have been many temples and shrines devoted to her throughout the last several centuries.
It is widely believed that the deity known as Thiên Y A Na is the Vietnamized version of the Cham deity, Pô Nagar, meaning “Lady of the Kingdom”. When the Việt came down from the North to central Vietnam and took over control of the land occupied by the Cham people, they attempted to assimilate the Cham into Việt culture. In doing so, they Vietnamized certain aspects of Cham culture that appealed to the Việt. It is through this process that the goddess Pô Nagar became Thiên Y A Na.
According to the myth of Pô Nagar, she was born from the clouds of the sky and the foam of the sea. Her physical form was manifest in a piece of eaglewood floating on the waves of the ocean. She is also said to have had ninety-seven husbands and thirty-nine daughters who became goddesses like their mother. Pô Nagar was the goddess who created the earth, eaglewood and rice. It is told that there was even the aroma of rice in the air around her. The Chams looked upon her as a goddess of plants and trees. She was considered nurturing like the earth and she granted blessings to her followers.
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