Like many families, my family has a mix of many names. My surname is Sasorith, and I get that last name from my mother’s side of the family. But, not all of my family members are Sasoriths. There are also: Keokanya, Insixiengmay, Sitthisack, Phetdara, Keobouahom, Vongbandith, and a lot more.
Most of my life, I didn’t think much about my last name because it was just a name. It was only when I had family members who had the last name “Phetdara” that I started to wonder if there was more meaning and story behind it. Phetdara translates to “diamonds and stars,” and for some of those family members it was an inspiration for star tattoos. From then on, I always wanted to learn what my last name meant (because, why not make a cool tattoo out of it).
Surnames were not really a thing in Laos until it was mandated by their colonizers — France. A lot of people made them up, and that’s why there are so many long Lao names that are a mix of words. Aren’t all names made up anyways? Johnson (son of John) had to start somewhere.
Does it Mean Pond? Conversing? What?
For the longest time, even after learning Lao and digging through dictionaries, I couldn’t find a clear definition to my last name — spelled in Lao as “ສະໂສຣິດ.” The “rith” part was actually easy to figure out, simply because it had an “r” and that automatically signified that it must be a borrowed word. So, at the very least, I always knew my last name had the word “power” in it — coming from “rddhi” of Sanskrit or “iddhi” of Pali (to be even more specific, it means supranormal, supernatural, or spiritual power).
The beginning of my last name was the challenge. I didn’t know where to break the syllables. I had typically searched “sa” and “so” separately. “Sa” possibly meant to give alms, to sacrifice, and possibly pond. “So” possibly meant to converse, to hope, to dare, or to risk. Mixing different definitions together, nothing really seemed to make sense. For a time, I was satisfied with ສະໂສຣິດ meaning “giving alms of hope and power.”
Recently, I saw a comment on Facebook made by a person with the last name Seausingnouane. My Lao and transliterating skills were definitely getting better, and I instantly translated “gentle tiger lion” when I saw it. I was once again inspired to dig into finding the meaning of my last name. With no intention at all, I simply typed “ສະໂສ” in Google and to my luck that simple act led me to finally figure out what my last name means!
ສະໂສ/saso is the nominative singular form (still trying to understand what that means grammatically or linguistically) of the Pali word for “hare” or “rabbit.” And adding “rith,” it translates to something along the lines of “rabbit power” or “power of the rabbit.” At first, it definitely seemed random to me. But knowing that Pali is the sacred language of Theravada Buddhism (the largest religion practiced amongst Lao people), I figured there has to be a Buddhist story about a rabbit. And of course, there is.
Sasa Jataka
In many cultures, there are stories about rabbits and the moon, and the same goes for Buddhism. One of Buddha’s (Siddhartha Gautama) past lives was as a rabbit. In the story, the rabbit tells his group of friends — jackal, otter, and monkey — that there‘s a full moon, which means that the following day, a holy day, they were supposed to fast and give alms to any beggar that comes to them. All of the animals then went off to gather food.
The jackal, otter, and monkey did gather food, but they didn’t do it in the most virtuous ways or they all did it with the intention to eat the food anyways, even though they were supposed to be fasting. The rabbit realized that he only ate grass and that wasn’t much to give to anyone. He didn’t have anything else to give, and so he decided that if a beggar came to him, he would sacrifice himself and give the beggar his own flesh.
Sakka — or Indra, the ruler of gods — went around to these animals disguised as a brahmin as a test. As the rabbit had decided, once the brahmin came to him, he offered his own flesh and did a swan dive into the fire. To the rabbit’s surprise, the fire was ice cold. Sakka then reveals himself and praises the rabbit for his virtue, rewarding the rabbit by squeezing a mountain and using its essence to paint the image of the rabbit on the moon.
Virtue & Power
After learning the story, it’s now not surprising that when I tried to figure out the definition of my last name before, the results came back with to give alms and to sacrifice. In a symbolic way, Sasorith or “rabbit power” means to attain power through the virtues of generosity and selflessness.
(Currently working on designing my next tattoo)