ABSTRACT
The Ceremony of the First Ploughing is entirely Brahmanical, and it takes place outside the city in the Crown padi field called Dun J?am P?oy in the sixth month. For the Ploughing Ceremony it is the custom for the King to appoint a temporary substitute, who in this case is always the Minister of Agriculture, the successor of the ancient Baladeba, or Head of the Department of Lands. Ploughing ceremonies are of world-wide distribution, but for our purpose it is sufficient to note that in both the two main centres of civilization, that is, India and China, from which the Siamese ceremony might have been derived, there were Ploughing Ceremonies in antiquity. In weighing the evidence in favour of a Chinese or of an Indian origin of the Siamese Ploughing Ceremony it will be of value first to consider the ploughing ceremonies as performed in the neighbouring countries, Cambodia and Burma.
