พิธีกรรมเครื่องเซ่นไหว้และความเชื่อทางศาสนา : ศึกษากรณีวัดมังกรกมลาวาส ถนนเจริญกรุง กรุงเทพมหานคร / พัชรวรรณ รัตนพันธุ์ = Offering rituals and religious belief : a case study of Wat Mangkornkamalawas, Bangkok Metropolis / Pacharawan Rathanapan
The Objectives of this thesis are to study the roles of offering rituals and religious belief, the detail and the symbolic system of the offerings, and the cognition of the offeres. This study applied anthropological techniques of research. Participant and non – participant observation and in - depth interviews were performed with 2 groups of subjects. The first group consisted of monks and laymen who were experts in the offering rituals. The second group was the regular offerers who came to make merit with more than just candles, joss sticks, and flowers at Wat Mangkornkamalawas at least 5 years long. This second group was 10 male and female offers who were over 35 years old. The study found that both offering rituals and religious beliefs were important to human way of life. People brought the offerings to Wat Mangkornkamalawas with faith and expectation in their mind. Some believed that with their offerings, they would receive happiness and success in return. The other came to make offerings to sacred deities after their desired objectives were fulfilled or their suffering were relieved. The study also revealed that the practice in offering rituals to sacred deities stemmed from the belief and accummulated experiences long time in the past. The offering rituals would be performed as long as the offerers were convinced of the mental - gratifying function of it.
