literally, frame used in sewing a robe; figuratively, ceremony held in the fourth month of the rainy season ( vassa), normally in October to November, in which a sangha receives a gift of cloth from lay people, award it to one of their members, and then in joint effort makes it into a robe before dawn of the following day.
Buddhist festival and ceremony of presenting new robes to monks.
Buddhist monks end a three month rain retreat and are given new robes. Friends and family join to celebrate harmony.
in Pali english there is a diacritical mark under the 't', so we have written it as katthina. The word refers to the cotton cloth which was annually supplied by the laity to the Venerable bhikkhus (Buddhist Monks) for the purpose of making robes. (Pali-Text Society Pali-English Dictionary, Rhys Davids and Stede, 1979 p178). The word is traditionally used to describe the ceremony in which the robes are offered by the lay persons to the Venerable bhikkhus.
(Buddhist) Monks are given new robes
ka.thina]: A ceremony, held in the fourth month of the rainy season, in which a sangha of bhikkhus receives a gift of cloth from lay people, bestows it on one of their members, and then makes it into a robe before dawn of the following day. [ MORE
robe-cloth, allowable to bhikkhus upon completion of Vas
Kathina is a Buddhist festival which comes at the end of Vassa, the three-month rainy season retreat for Theravada Buddhists. The season during which a monastery may hold a 'Kathina' festival is one month long, beginning after the full moon of the eleventh month in the Lunar calendar (usually October). In order to hold a 'Kathina', a monastery must have had five monks in residence during the retreat period and only those who were present for the entire retreat are eligible to receive the robe cloth offered.
