Each year, in the month after the Rains Retreat ends, Buddhist temples around the world hold the Katina ceremony, when lay devotees offer robe cloth to the Sangha. For Sri Lankan Buddhists it is one of the most cherished events of the year, and the whole month is popularly known as the “month of robes” (cīvara māsa). This article explains what the Katina is, how it began, and what the Buddha taught about the kind of giving at its heart.
What Is the Katina?
The Pāli word kaṭhina refers to the wooden frame on which monks once stretched cloth to hand-sew their robes. Today it names the robe offering itself: a gift of cloth and other requisites made to the monks at the end of the Rains Retreat.
The Katina is part of the monastic discipline (Vinaya), which sets out how the robe is offered and made. The suttas do not describe the ceremony, but they teach a great deal about the generosity it expresses. Both are drawn on below.
When Is It Held?
During the three months of the Rains Retreat (Vas), which begins on the day after the Esala full moon in July, monks stay in one monastery and suspend travel. The retreat closes with the Pavarana ceremony on the October full moon, when each monk invites his fellow monks to point out any faults he has committed during the retreat.
The Katina can be held on any day from Pavarana until the following full moon in November (Il Poya). Different monasteries choose different days within this month, but each monastery may hold only one Katina ceremony a year.
How It Began
The Vinaya tells of a group of thirty monks who, at the end of the Rains, braved rain and floods to visit the Buddha and arrived at his residence drenched and weary. Seeing their condition, the Buddha allowed monks who had completed the Rains Retreat to hold a Katina, so that they could receive cloth and make new robes.
The Ceremony
The robe is offered to the Sangha as a whole, not to any one monk. The Sangha then formally presents it to one monk who has completed the retreat. Traditionally, the monks cut, sew, and dye the robe together, and it must be finished within a single day. Today the cloth often arrives already sewn, but the monks still share in the work.
In Sri Lanka, the robe is often carried around the village in a procession with drumming in the early hours of the morning. Many Sinhala kings made this offering with great devotion, and the ceremony remains an occasion of deep religious and social meaning for the lay community. At our Vihara, devotees join in the Katina procession (Katina Perahera), the robe coloring with tree bark and medicinal herbs (Cheewara Pandu Peweema), and the offering of the robe (Cheewara Pooja).
For the monks, completing the Katina brings certain relaxations of the robe rules for the months that follow. These are the “Katina privileges” mentioned in the monks’ code of discipline, the Pātimokkha.
The Katina in Light of the Suttas
A gift in its proper season
The Buddha spoke of five “seasonable gifts”: giving to a newcomer, to one going away, to one who is ill, in time of famine, and offering the first fruits of the harvest to those who are virtuous (AN 5.36). Such gifts meet a real need at the moment it arises. The Katina has the same quality. It can be offered only in one month of the year, just as the monks’ robes need renewing after the Rains.
Among the five gifts of a person of integrity, the Buddha lists giving in season, and says that one who gives in season finds that his own goals are fulfilled in season (AN 5.148).
The gift of cloth
When a deva asked what each kind of gift bestows, the Buddha replied:
A giver of clothes, a giver of beauty.
— SN 1.42
In the same verse he names the highest gift of all: one who teaches the Dhamma is a giver of the Deathless. The robe we offer supports the monks who keep that teaching alive.
Giving to the Sangha
In the recollection of the Sangha, the Buddha’s disciples who practice well are called worthy of gifts and “the unexcelled field of merit for the world” (SN 11.3). The Dakkhiṇāvibhaṅga Sutta (MN 142) teaches that a gift offered to the Sangha as a whole is of greater value than a gift offered to a single monk in his individual capacity (Dāna: The Practice of Giving). This is why the Katina robe is always offered to the Sangha, which then decides who will receive it.
Giving with the right mind
The fruit of a gift depends on the mind with which it is given. In AN 7.49, the Buddha describes a series of motives for giving, from hoping for a reward after death to keeping up a family custom. The highest is to give with the thought:
This is an ornament for the mind, a support for the mind.
— AN 7.49
Elsewhere the Buddha teaches that a gift is complete when the giver is glad before giving, inspired while giving, and satisfied afterward (AN 6.37). A Katina offered in this spirit is not a duty to be discharged but a joy to be shared.
If beings knew
The Buddha said that if beings knew, as he knew, the results of giving and sharing, they would not eat without having given, even if it were their last mouthful (Iti 26). The Katina is a yearly reminder of that teaching, and an opportunity for the whole community to act on it together.
Taking Part
Everyone is welcome to share in the Katina, whether by offering cloth and requisites, helping to prepare the temple, joining the robe coloring, or simply rejoicing in the merit of others. As the Buddha taught, those who rejoice in a gift or give assistance also have a share of the merit, and the offering is not depleted by that (AN 5.36).
May the merit of this offering bring peace and happiness to all beings.
With Metta,
Georgia Buddhist Vihara
References
Suttas
- AN 5.36 Kāladāna Sutta: Seasonable Gifts
- AN 5.148 Sappurisadāna Sutta: A Person of Integrity’s Gifts
- AN 7.49 Dāna Sutta: Giving
- SN 1.42 Kindada Sutta: A Giver of What
- SN 11.3 Dhajagga Sutta: The Top of the Standard
- Iti 26: Giving
- MN 142 Dakkhiṇāvibhaṅga Sutta: The Analysis of Offerings; AN 6.37 Chaḷaṅgadāna Sutta: Six-factored Giving (both summarized in Dāna: The Practice of Giving, below)
Vinaya and further reading
- Bhikkhu Pātimokkha, Nissaggiya Pācittiya 1–3 (the Katina privileges), translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
- Buddhist Ceremonies and Rituals of Sri Lanka by A.G.S. Kariyawasam, chapter 6, “Monastic Ceremonies: Vassa and Kathina”
- The Bhikkhus’ Rules: A Guide for Laypeople by Bhikkhu Ariyesako, “The Robe Offering Time”
- Dāna: The Practice of Giving, edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi
- Uposatha Observance Days, Access to Insight
Sutta translations by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, from Access to Insight, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.