Every May, two sacred white oxen are led across Sanam Luang, the vast ceremonial field opposite Bangkok’s Grand Palace, while Brahmin priests chant in Sanskrit, celestial maidens scatter blessed rice seed, and thousands of spectators wait for the moment the formal procession ends so they can rush onto the field and scoop up handfuls of dirt. This is the Royal Ploughing Ceremony, one of Thailand’s oldest state rituals, and on May 13, 2026, it happens again.
What is the Royal Ploughing Ceremony?
Known in Thai as Phra Ratcha Phithi Phuetcha Mongkhon Charot Phra Nangkhan Raek Na Khwan (พระราชพิธีจรดพระนังคัลแรกนาขวัญ), the ceremony officially opens Thailand’s rice-planting season and doubles as National Farmers’ Day.
This Thai holiday combines two separate religious traditions, a Buddhist seed-blessing and a Brahmanical ploughing rite, performed on consecutive days.
The Buddhist portion takes place on May 12 at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha inside the Grand Palace. The public Brahmanical ploughing follows on May 13 at Sanam Luang.
Where did it come from?
The rite predates Thailand by roughly two thousand years. Its earliest written appearance is in the Ramayana, where King Janaka of Videha guides a golden plough and the heroine Sita, whose name means “furrow,” springs from the earth.
A parallel rite appears in Buddhist scripture, where the infant Siddhartha entered his first meditation under a rose-apple tree while his father, King Suddhodana, performed a royal ploughing ceremony beside him. The agricultural ritual is not only older than the history of Thailand but also older than Buddhism itself.
The ceremony entered Southeast Asia through the Funan Kingdom between the 1st and 6th centuries CE, was absorbed into the Khmer Empire’s god-king tradition, and passed to the Tai courts when Sukhothai broke from Khmer rule in the mid-13th century.
By the Ayutthaya period, the king had stopped ploughing in person, delegating the role to a representative called the Phraya Raek Na (the Lord of the First Ploughing) while the monarch observed a ritual retreat.
King Mongkut (Rama IV) made the most consequential change to the modern format. Recognising that the existing rite was entirely Brahmanical, he added the Buddhist seed-blessing ceremony as a paired first day, creating the two-part structure that defines the ceremony today.
His son Chulalongkorn (Rama V) documented it in his treatise Royal Ceremonies of the Twelve Months, and by 1925, the ceremony appeared on every denomination of Thailand’s Series 2 banknotes.
The ceremony was suspended in 1936 following the end of the absolute monarchy. It was partially restored in 1947 and then fully revived in 1960 by King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX), who also established the Royal Chitralada Project, an experimental paddy farm inside his Dusit Palace residence, to supply the blessed rice seed used in the ceremony each year.
The divination of the Royal Ploughing Ceremony in Thailand: cloth, oxen, and seven trays
The Brahmanical ceremony at Sanam Luang is built around two divinations that produce the year’s agricultural forecast.
The first is the cloth draw. Three folded panels of identical-looking cloth lie hidden under cover, each cut to a different length measured in khuep (roughly 25 cm per span). The Phraya Raek Na chooses one blind. A short cloth (4 khuep) predicts heavy rainfall, good for highland crops but risky for lowland flooding.
The middle cloth (5 khuep) predicts a balanced monsoon and is considered the most auspicious. The longest cloth (6 khuep) predicts scarce rainfall, harder for upland crops but easier for lowland fields. In 2023, 2024 and 2025, the Phraya Raek Na drew the middle cloth all three years running.
The second divination happens after the ploughing. The sacred oxen are unyoked and presented with seven small trays containing paddy rice, maize, mung beans, sesame, fresh grass, water, and Thai rice liquor.
The Royal Astrologer reads whatever the animals eat: grain predicts abundant harvests, grass and water predict good livestock and rainfall, and liquor (the crowd favourite) predicts smooth foreign trade and a prosperous economy.
The rush to get the seeds
Once the formal procession departs, a lot of the people, many of them farmers who have travelled hours to be there, sprint onto the ploughed field and start scooping up the scattered rice seed by the handful.
The blessed royal seed is believed to carry barami, a kind of spiritual merit, and mixing a few grains into your own seed stock is considered insurance against the unpredictable threats of the growing season.
Keep in mind that a lot of the seeds would be packaged up and sent to the farmers as well, so this is a way to gather seeds for good fortune (with the freshest of auspiciousness).
Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar
Thailand’s version of the Royal Ploughing Ceremony is one of the most elaborate surviving form of this rite, but the underlying tradition cuts across the entire region in ways that show how deeply shared this cultural heritage really is.
Cambodia holds its own royal ploughing ceremony, known as Bonn Chroat Preah Nongkoal, typically held in front of the National Museum in Phnom Penh. The core mechanics are strikingly familiar: sacred oxen, seven food trays, a royal presider, and a forecast that hinges on what the animals choose to eat.
Where Cambodia extends the tradition is in the scope of the predictions, which cover not just harvests but floods, epidemics, and broader national well-being. The Cambodian ceremony is, in fact, much older than the Thai ceremony; it was through the Khmer Empire that the rite first entered what is now Thailand, which makes the two countries’ parallel observances less coincidental and more shared ancestry.
Myanmar’s old Burmese monarchy practised a closely related rite until the British abolished the monarchy in 1885. The Burmese version was performed with white oxen adorned in gold and silver, and combined Buddhist prayers with invocations to the 37 chief nat spirits, indigenous animist figures unique to Burmese religious culture.
The addition of nat worship alongside Hindu and Buddhist elements mirrors the same pattern of layered religious syncretism seen in Thailand, where Brahmin priests, Buddhist monks, and animist concepts of the rice goddess all operate within the same ceremony without contradiction.
Vietnam carries its own version of the same tradition. The Long Tong Festival, celebrated by the Tay and Nung ethnic communities in northern Vietnam right after the Lunar New Year, follows the same essential logic: villagers gather, prayers are offered to agricultural gods, including Than Nong (the God of Agriculture), and a respected man from the community is chosen to make the first ceremonial plough of the season. Offerings of sticky rice, poultry, and livestock are laid out, and the festivities that follow include folk games and traditional songs.
The detail that echoes most clearly across borders is the choice of the first ploughman, not just anyone, but someone known for good character and farming skill, mirroring the careful selection of the Phraya Raek Na in Thailand. Scholars have noted similar royal first-ploughing traditions in imperial China and Japan as well.
The common thread across all of them is the same: a king, or his representative, performs a symbolic agricultural act to legitimise his rule, invoke divine favour for the harvest, and remind the population that royal power is grounded in the fertility of the land.
Can you watch?
The 2026 ceremony is confirmed for Wednesday, May 13, with the Buddhist blessing the day before on Tuesday, May 12. The auspicious ploughing window is 8.09am to 8.39am. This is a Thai government holiday, meaning immigration offices and state agencies will be closed. Banks, private businesses and most retail stay open as normal, as it is not a universal public holiday like Songkran.
The ceremony is free and open to the public. Around 2,000 public seats are typically arranged at Sanam Luang. Arrive by 7am to clear security and find a good spot. Expect temperatures above 35°C, bag checks, and a no-drone policy.
Dress conservatively, cover shoulders and knees, as you would for a temple or palace visit. Stand quietly when the royal anthem plays and avoid pointing cameras directly at the royal pavilion.
Furthermore, with rain starting to sporadically pour this month, it would be best practice to bring an umbrella or a raincoat just in case.
Getting there: MRT Sanam Chai (Exit 1) is the easiest option. Chao Phraya river boats to Tha Chang or Tha Tien piers work well too. Roads around the area close early, and traffic becomes difficult, so public transport is the safest call.
One warning: watch out for strangers near the Grand Palace who tell you the ceremony or the palace is closed and offer to take you elsewhere. This is a well-known scam. The main entrance will have accurate information.
If you cannot make it in person, you can look online for the ceremony and try to find broadcasts that stream it.
The story Why two white oxen decide Thailand’s agricultural forecast every May in the Royal Ploughing Ceremony as seen on Thaiger News.
