It’s Dec. 31, 1999. Dr. Jeffrey Samuels is in a small village outside of Kandy, Sri Lanka, standing on the flat roof of a newly built residence hall, looking at rural hills and trees. For months, he’s studied the monastic training and education of Buddhism, working toward his dissertation at the University of Virginia.

On the other side of the roof, 13 native boys, ages 8 to 18, wait anxiously, for tomorrow they will become Buddhist novices, young monks. The head monk explains to them the ordination procedure for tonight and tomorrow – the verses to recite, how to sit, what to expect.

Samuels has seen ordinations before, but nothing like this – on New Year’s Eve. Tonight, there will be an all-night blessing ritual until morning, and then the ordination ceremony.

Samuels moves with the novice monks to a sunlit rectangular room on the fourth floor of the shrine hall next door. Parents pour in to see their sons for the first time in six months. The sons bow and prostrate at their parents’ feet.

“It’s relaxed; it’s festive,” Samuels said.

The parents give their sons gifts – some of the eight monastic requisites such as begging bowls, robes, razors, belts.

At 6 p.m., the patrons of a nearby temple prepare for the blessing ritual, pulling out mats for everyone to sit and lay on and meditate into the New Year.

At 8 p.m., the elder monks return, chanting verses of Buddhist texts in their native language – Pali. The boys sit with the laypeople, about 150, mostly their parents. The monks bless the laypeople for the new millennium, the boys in their soon-to-begin monastic lives.

“It was certainly grand,” Samuels said.

Samuels interviews some of the laypeople during the night. The interviews tonight won’t go toward his dissertation, but toward a book he will publish in 2008.

The blessing ritual lasts until 6 a.m. The ceremony will begin at 8. In the meantime, the 13 boys’ hair is clipped – each of them hold a lock in his hand and meditates impermanence while he is soaped and shaved.

“Many of them dreamed of this day,” Samuels said. “There’s a certain aesthetic in monastic life. Many of the boys grew up going to the monastery after school, like some kids go to a playground.”

The shaved heads, the colorful robes, it’s all part of the aesthetic. The boys are dressed in pure white robes while they drink a small cup of tea.

And the ceremony begins. Back in the hall, the young monks pay respect to their parents, prostrating themselves at their feet – this time for the last time.

They turn and face the older monks, prostrate. The novice monks go off to dress in their new colorful, saffron robes given to them by the elder monks.

When they return, the laypeople shout “Sadha! Sadha!” (Amen! Amen!) The head monk recites the first of the Ten Precepts, with the novice monks repeating:

“Panatipata veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami” (I undertake the precept to refrain from destroying living creatures).

After they recite the remaining nine, the novice monks prostrate to the older monks. Then they turn around to witness their parents prostrating to them. Some of them are crying.

The parents linger for a while, but eventually they must go back to the village from which they came.

Reach Ryan Hunton at features@chherald.com.