New Year Customs - 2016
Traditional New Year celebration is a wonderful cultural festival most of the South and South East Asian countries. The following NY customs are conducted by the Sinhala people in accordance with the ancient astrological prescriptions.
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| Rise of the New Year - April 13, 7.48 PM |
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| Time for Meritorious Activities: From April 13, 1.24 PM - April 14, 2.12 AM. This is supposed to be the transition time and everyone is advised to conduct meritorious activities such as visiting temples and being blessed. During this time other activities are not recommended as per the ancient tradtion. |
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| Inaugural Cooking. April 13 - 8.06 PM is the time for this activity wearing green color dress, facing towards southern direction. Menu for this time is Milk Rice + Green Pea + Ghee. |
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| Resumption of Exchanges & Partaking Meals - April 13, 8.54 PM. Starting meal is recommended with Green color dress after having exchanged a business activity with family members facing toward Southern direction. |
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| Time for Sweets. Any time after the proper meal, every one can taste the traditional sweets. Usually, relatives, friends, and neighbours are visited with a traditional sweet pack and bundle of beetle to ward off all enmities and rebuild amity and good will among each other. No more enmities after this event. This is really a wonderful practice. |
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| Ointment Ceremony: April 16, 10.41 AM. Dressed up in blue and facing towards the Western direction, ointment ceremony takes place with Banyan leaves on top and Karanda leaves below. This is usually performed by a Buddhist monk or a senior citizen in the village. Even the head of the household performs such events depending on the situation. |
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