Kathina is a Buddhist festival which comes at the end of Vassa, the three-month rainy season retreat for Theravada Buddhists in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and Vietnam. The season during which a monastery may hold Kathina is one month long, beginning after the full moon of the eleventh month in the Lunar calendar (usually October).

It is a time of giving, for the laity to express gratitude to bhikkhus (Buddhist monks). Lay Buddhists bring donations to temples, especially new robes for the monks. The gift of the Eight Requisites (Attha Parikara) includes three yellow, orange or ochre robes (i.e., the lower loincloth, the upper inner robe and the large top robe), an alms bowl, a razor to shave the head, a needle for mending clothes, a water strainer, and a cloth girdle.