Hindu fasts and feasts

Front matter

HINDU 1 TS AND FEAST

MUKERJi M.A

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Preface

In introducing my little book to the public, I feel that my first word should be a word of sincere gratitude to the Hon’ble Mr. J. G. Jennings, M.A., Director of Public Instruction, Bihar and Orissa, to whom I owe not only the idea of writing on such a subject, but also his kind collaboration in the actual production of no fewer than seven of these essays. The kindness with which he gave me his valued assistance and encouragement in the midst of his heavy official duties as Principal, Muir Central College, is certainly worthy of a higher acknowledgment than the mere formality of a word of thanks in the Preface.

In their first form, these essays appeared as articles in The Leader or The Pioneer , from time to time, during the years 1913 and 1914. I have now re-written them, with large additions, and arranged them in chronological order, with a view to giving them, if possible, a more permanent form. Two of them— Sitala Saptami and Dasahra or Ganga Puja — are appearing here for the first time.

No one can be more sensible of the shortcomings of this little book than myself. My difficulties were serious, and in many cases almost insurmountable. In the first place, it is impossible to write on a social ii

PREFACE or religious subject with absolute “ fairness ; ” and in the case of the Hindu society and religion this “ fairness” is impossible in another sense, — the subject itself is one which is utterly incapable of any exhaustive or even adequate treatment. For, as Sir Monier Williams says in his Religious Life and Thought in India , “ Religion is ever present to a Hindu’s mind. It colours all his ideas. It runs through every fibre of his being. It is the very Alpha and Omega of his whole earthly career. He is born religious, and dies religious. He is religious in his eating and drinking, in his sleeping and waking, in his dressing and undressing, in his rising up and sitting down, in his wor«k and amusement. Nay, religion attends him in antenatal ceremonies long before his birth, and follows him in endless offerings for the good of his soui long after death.” Every word of this statement is as true to-day as it was in Sir Monier Williams’ time ; and the result is that to write an exhaustive account of the Hindu fasts and feasts is really equivalent to writing a complete history of the Hindu people from the Aryan immigration into India down to the present day ; and such a task would be as stupendous as the famous Hindu legend about the “ Churning of the Ocean ” by the gods and giants in the earliest infancy of the World,— a task, therefore, that can fitly be undertaken by one who is either a god or a giant.

In the second place, I had to contend against the difficulty caused by the absence of written authorities on a vast number of points touched in these pages. Where written authorities exist, they were sometimes inaccessible, sonfetines conflicting, sometimes

PREFACE iii unauthentic. I have, therefore, been obliged to rely chiefly on tradition and personal experience, and where even these have failed, I have had to fall back upon that last resort of all writers on Folklore — conjecture.

My last word in the Preface must; like my first, be a word of gratitude— of respectful gratitude to the Honorable Sir James Scorgie Meston, K.O.S.X., Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces, and to the Honorable Mr. CUF. de la Fosse, M.A., Director of Public Instruction, whose kind appreciation of some of these e,ssays in the Press has greatly encouraged me’ in my task of republishing them in book form.

Muir College, Allahabad : A. O. M.

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Contents

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I.— Makara Sankranti

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% into which she breathed life. The doll, thus animated, became a handsome boy, and she named him Ganesha. She then *asked this creation of hers to guard the door of the house until she finished her bath. It so happened that Shiva himself turned up at the door the very next moment. Ganesha’s orders were to guard the entrance, and he took this to mean that he was not to allow

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anybody to enter, whoever it might be, without any further reference to his mother. He knew not Shiva ; he^ n&ver suspected that it was his own father seeking to ^nter his own house ; nor did Shiva either suspect who this strange boy might be. Shiva at first tried to coax the little doorkeeper, and then mingled threats with cajolery ; but Ganesha was quite clear about his orders. Shiva was filled with wrath at this boyish obstinacy ; and in his rage he cut off Ganesha’s head and made a forcible entry. When Parvati, coming out of her bath, saw Ganesha lying murdered, she was filled with grief and dismay, and in her sorrow she refused to speak to her husband, insisting that the boy should be restored to life. Shiva promised to bring her son back to life, and with that end he despatched his spirit-messengers to all parts of the earth with orders to bring the head of the first living creature (no matter of what species) that should be found sleeping with his head turned towards the north. Shiva’s aerial messengers roamed about hither and thither for a long time, but were unable to find any human creature sleeping with head turned northwards. They at last found an elephant lying in that position, and they instantly cut off his head and brought it to Shiva who, fain to find a head for a head, fixed it to Ganesha’s body, and Ganeshp sprang forth to life again, half man, half elephant. The above legend accounts for the superstition that forbids Hindus to sleep with their head towards the north— a prohibition that is binding to this day. r There is, however, a second reason for this avoidance of the northern aspect in sleep — namely, that in this position the feet of the sleeping person would be pointed towards the regions of the dead, and this would be an act of irreverence to departed ancestors.

The name ‘Ganesha’ is sometimes etymologically split up into two words, gana and eesha (‘ lord of the spirits ’), and this derivation has led some European scholars to think that Ganesha is only a tutelary deity, a vulgar intermixture of the divine and the demoniac. This notion has become corroborated in some minds by a strange verse from an ancient version of Manu, which purports to lay down that “ Shiva is the god of the Brahmans, Vishnu of the Kshattriyas, Brahma of the Vaishyas, and Ganesha of the Sudras.” Theife can be no doubt that this

* division and distribution is absolutely fanciful ; there is nothing in present-day religious practice to show that any such allotment of gc/ds, based on the fourfold division of the Hindu people, t was ever made or followed. Brahmans and all other ‘castes are as much worshippers ofGanesha as the Sudras, whose special deity he is supposed to be. Ganesha derives his popularity from the fact of his being the son of the 4 great god ’ Shiva ; and his mother, Parvati, is no other than Durga, the goddess of victory, the mighty Mother of the Universe, the grand personification of the .principle of Power or Fecundity in Nature. Hence Ganesha is an object of devout adoration for Shaivas and Shaktas alike — all those, in fact, who care for the acquisition of wisdom and learning, or who, wanting in these themselves, admire the same in others. The character in which Ganesha appears most frequently in Hindu mythology is as the god of wisdom, the patron of letters, and the bestower of success in difficult and hazardous undertakings. His elephant’s head is an emblem of all-comprehensive wisdom, and even his vahan, the rat, is well-known for its sagacity. There is a beautiful myth illustrating Ganesha’s precocious wisdom. Ganesha and his brother, Kartik, had once a boyish dispute as to which of them was the elder of the two, and the dispute was referred to Shiva, for decision. Shiva did not know what to say ; for, in truth, the question was hard to decide, Ganesha being a boy not ‘ born ’ in the ordinary way at all. He gave his decision most impartially by ruling that whichever of the two boys would make a tour round the world in the shorter time, would thereby prove himself the elder. Now, Kartik’s vahan is the peacock, and this gave him a decided superiority over the rat-mounted Ganesha. Sitting on the back of his winged carrier, Kartik flew off immediately to make a circuit of the world, and in a short time disappeared from view. But Ganesha, instead of setting out on the tour, quietly tpade a circuit round his parents, and bowing before them claimed the prize of victory. “ But you never went round the globe,” said Shiva. “ No,” replied Ganesha, “ but I went round my parents who represent to me all that is comprehended in the term 4 world.’ ” This bit of well-timed philosophy clinched the question in dispute, and Ganesha was thereafter acknowledged as the eldest son of Shiva.

Ganesha Chaturthi is the day sacred to Ganesha. It is observed on the fourth day of the waning moon of Magh. By the common people the day is known as ‘ Sakat,’ which is a corruption of the Sanskrit word Sankat, meaning ‘ difficulty.’ Ganesha Chaturthi is also called Sankat Chaturthi, in allusion to one of the chief attributes of Ganesha, that of remover of difficulties.0 The festival is, at least in the

GANBSHA CHATURTHI

United Provinces, observed almost exclusively by the women-folk, chiefly those who have sons, as the observance of it by a mother is believed to bring long life and prosperity to the sop*. AsDurgais the ideal of mothers, so is Ganesha the ideal of sons, and by worshipping him, therefore, mothers hope to earn for their own sons a fair measure of the sterling virtues which distinguish Ganesha among the gods. The way in which women observe this festival is by keeping an absolute fast for the whole day, and worshipping Garfesha at night, just at the moment when the moon is seen rising above the eastern horizon. This takes place between 9 and 10 o’clock at night. The worship consists in offering to the god a kind of dry pudding made of sesamum and unrefined sugar, loosely piled upon a brass tray so as to be of the shape of a miniature mountain, while on a wooden board or low stool, placed alongside of this tray, are ranged together a number of conical figures made ofcowdung. The pile of sweetened sesamum in the tray is supposed to be a ram or wolf represented with a big head, which is then severed from the trunk with a blade of durva grass. This is usually done by a priest, who gets as his fee the sesamum head of this emblematic ram or wolf, together with a small cash present. The puja being over, the women and children of the house sit tOi gether, and the oldest matron of the family then recites the “ Katha,” or the legend appropriate to the day, and the others listen. The tale of Ganesha Chaturthi has varying ‘versions like every other traditional story handedrdown from mouth to mouth for countless generations. One version, which the present writer has listened to year after year in his own family runs as follows : —

There was once a poor Brahman householder who made a precarious living on the charity of his neighbours, without making any attempt at earning a surer livelihood by other means. When the festival of Ganesha Chaturthi game near, his wife scolded him for leading an indolent life at home, and not making any effort to seek a living by going abroad. “ We have not enough even for daily bread,” said she, “ how is it possible for me to keep the observance of our sacred festivals ? I cannot become so irreligious as to dispense with the customary pujas enjoined by our Shastras : I would much sooner dispense with a meal occasionally than abandon our family gods. I must celebrate the worship of Ganesha on the appointed day, but have not the wherewithal to perform the ceremony — not even a handful of sesamum or a pinch of sugar.

* You must therefore leave home instantly, and get me the requisite articles of worship anyhow you can.” The Brahman calculated that the handiest way of procuring these would be by breaking into a Bania’s xshop by night and committing a little harmless theft in the name of Ganesha. Shortly after nightfall, the Brahman crept into a. grocer’s stall, but being in, his conscience began to smite him for the contemplated sin. Standing in the middle of the shop the Brahman felt his movements paralysed, and he reasoned aloud : “ If I steal any sesamum, it would be a sin ; if I steal any sugar, it would again be a sin. There is no escape from sin.” The owner of the shop, who was somewhere within earshot, started up at this strange soliloquy, and, fearing

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it was some ghost or spirit that had entered the shop, exclaimed in a voice quaking with fear : “I beseech you, tell me who you are, and I am ready to do your bidding like a slave. Are you the Lord Chauth himself ? I will give you as much sesamum and sugar as you can carry, if only you will mercifully make your exit.” The Brahman replied that he was not the Lord Ganesha at all, but only an indigent Brahman who had been driven by the scolding of his wife to stoop to an act of shame from which his heart was rebelling. But this truthful confession was more than the Bania could believe, and he still took the honest Brahman to be some evil spirit, to appease whom he asked the intruding voice to carry off as much sesamun and sugar as it pleased. The Brahman cheerfully accepted the generous gift, and taking a fair quantity of either 2 stuff, came home to his wife with joy. And his wife worshipped Ganesha therewith, and through the blessing of the god, the Brahman was made a happy and prosperous man.

There is another popular story connected with the festival of Ganesha Chaturthi, which, though somewhat vulgar in colouring, seems, in the lessons that it teaches, to have hada cultured origin. It tells us that there were once two neighbours, one well-to-do and the other poor. One day the poor man was discovered to have suddenly become rich, and his rich neighbour came to him and asked him how he had grown so wealthy all at once. He replied that his wife had worshipped Ganesha on the night of the Ganesha Chaturthi by offering to the god just a handful of sesamum and gur, and that the god had become so pleased with the offering as to visit his hut personally. He and his wife were sleeping in a room, when they were awakened by a voice speaking in the little closet where the puja had been held but an hour or so ago : “ I am very pleased with you.” “ Who is that ?” cried out the wife in alarm. “ It is I, Chauth Gosain,” replied the voice. “ Well,” said the woman, “ what do you want ?” She suspected it was some thief or rogue that had broken into the c house, and she therefore wakened her husband, and the two stood on their guard, keeping, however, inside their room. The voice spoke again, “ I want to ease myself.” There could be no mistake now : it must be a lunatic that had entered their house ; and the poor couple thought it*best to humour the fellow. So the woman replied, “ Well, — there are four corners in the room where you are, and you may ease yourself in one of those.” A few minutes later, the same voice spoke again, “ I want to make water;” and the woman gave the same reply.

It was now past t midnight. All possibility of sleep was gone, avid man and wife kept broad awake, expecting to see worste and worse forms of the same madness. In the third quarter of the night, the voice cried again, “ I want to weep.” The same reply was of course again given, as it had at least satisfied the supposed lunatic so far as to prevent him from showing his madness in a more aggressive form. In the last quarter of the night, the voice spoke for the last time, “ I want to laugh.” But the same reply was again given, although a different one could have been tried, considering that the dawmwas already breaking in the east, and help could be more readily procured in case the madman attempted violence. But before it was quite dawn, the madman had taken his exit, and daylight revealed a miracle in each of the four corners of the closet where the supposed madman hadjplayed his supposed pranks. The little room was. heaped with gold and gems, and at the sight of these the poor man and his wife burst into tears of repentance. The god Ganesha himself had visited their humble dwelling, and how discourteously they had treated Him who had in one night converted their little hut into a treasure-house. Now, the rich neighbour listened to this tale with eager interest, gaping with profound wonder at the thought of a poor man’s rising to such a fortune in the course of a single night. He questioned him in detail as to the exact procedure he had adopted in the worship of Ganesha on that blissful night, the exact kind of offering he had made, the exact quantity of each article, and so on, determining in his mind to do the same on the next occasion of the puja. He told all this to his wife, and the wife, too, visited her neighbour’s wife, and personally verified all the details of the ceremony that .her husband had reported to her. And then she impatiently awaited the arrival of the sacred day. The days seemed in her impatience to pass most languidly. Of course, she was in no needy circumstances, but rather sufficiently rich to have no hankering for more. But still the sight of her upstart neighbour gave rise in her heart to the ambition of outshining him in wealth and splendour ; hence the keen longing, the restless impatience with which both she and her husband looked forward to the auspicious day. And now

GANBSHA CHATURTHI

^ the auspicious day had come, and preparations for the puja were made in rigid conformity with the details that had been followed by their neighbour. Just a handful of sesamum, only a little grain of gur were offered in the worship ; the smallest room in the house was chosen for the ceremony ; and, after the carefully-studied rites were over, man and wife betook themselves to sleep in the next room, choosing to lie down on the bare ground, because their neighbour had done so. But neither of them could summon a wink of sleep in expectation of the blessed visitation. They had not to wait long. The expected voice was heard at the expected hour ; and, truly enough, it spoke the same words. Naturally, the same reply was given which the woman had so carefully conned. Everything happened exactly as had happened to her neighbour, — the same voice speaking the same words, at the same hours, and receiving the same replies in the same semi-sarcastic tone. For even the tone of the reply had been studiously copied by a year’s rehearsal. The last reply was given just as the dawn was breaking in the eastern sky. Everything was now indeed complete : no detail was wanting, and the woman’s heart was leaping with joy as at daylight she opened the door of the little room to gather the heaps of gold and gems. But there was another kind of miracle awaiting her eyes. Instead of the gold and gems she had expected to find, the whole room was filled with human excrement, flooded with urine, and giving forth a horrible stench ! The woman was horrified, a ndr fell Back in her terror. Loudly she denounced her innocent neighbour for having, as she thought, deluded her with a concocted lie. The next moment she blamed herself for putting faith in an upstart’s words ; and the next moment stormed at her neighbour for practising such a villainous trick upon her. The news soon leaked out, and her neighbours came, some to sympathise with her" others to laugh at her folly. But there was one among them who saw through the meaning of the whole comic tragedy. She explained that the fault was neither in the god, nor in the neighbour who had told the truth, but in the silly woman’s own heart that had yielded to temptation when it should have resisted it, that had fallen a prey to avarice when it should have rested in contentment, that had entertained the vile ambition of outshining a neighbour in wealth instead of trying to excel him in piety. She was already rich and well-to-do, and the proper way for her to worship the god would have been in a style befitting her wealth and position. Instead of doing that, she had blindly followed the humble style of her humble neighbour ; she had even had the audacity to speak to the god, knowing that it was a god she was addressing, in the same semi-sarcastic tone that had been used by her neighbour in ignorance ; and she had therefore well merited the punishment which had visited her. ,

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III

Basanta Panchami is the fifth day of the light-half of Magh, and is so called because it is regarded as the first day of the Indian spring — ‘ Basanta ’ being the Sanskrit name of the spring season. The great spring festival of India is, however, not the one that bears the name of spring, but another which comes off some six weeks later, — namely, the Holi. But the Holi is a spring festival in the sense that it is a day of popular rejoicing, following closely upon or immediately preceding the harvesting of the spring crops ; whereas Basanta Panchami marks the commencement of the spring season from the astronomical point of view.

Why the advent of jthe spring season should be a festive occasion in a tropical country, is not quite obvious, for in no part of the plain regions of India, where this festival is honoured by some kind of observance, are the rigours of the winter season at any time so severe as to make the approach of npring a looked-for event. The mild Indian winter has no terrors for even the poorest Indian peasant, as long as he can enjoy the warm sunshine by day, and can gather a heap of dry leaves to provide him with a flicker of fire at nightfall, just before he lays himself down on his pallet and covers himself up with his rude blanket in his low-rodfed, mud-built, air-tight hut, from which he can defy the winter’s wind and frost. Nor does the Indian winter cause any perceptible decay of vegetation to make it anything like the dreary season it is in colder climates. Nevertheless, the arrival of the spring season, heralded by the melodious notes of the cuckoo and by the sweet breath of mango blooms wafted upon the breeze, has even in India been the constant theme of delight to Indian poets, who revel no less in the joys and beauties of the vernal season than the greatest Nature poets of English literature. It is probably these Indian poets that have elevated Basanta Panchami to the dignity of a festival, for there was originally nothing religious about the day, and it is still, in many parts of India, observed as a mere secular festival, with no celebration connected with it, except that young men wear a turban or scarf dyed in yellow, in allusion to the popular meaning of the term 4 Basanta ’ which signifies ‘yellow.’ But it is doubtful whether the word Basanta originally meant what it does now, or whether this meaning is derived from the custom o,f wearing yellow on the day of Basanta Panchami.

HINDU PASTS AND FEASTS

The presumption that it is the ancient Sanskrit poets who have actually founded the Basanta festival, is corroborated by another custom which prevails in those parts of the Province where families of ‘Bhats’ are still found. The Bhats are a class of indigenous bards, who at one time possessed such poetic skill that they could sing extempore songs on any subject given to them, and could also carry on a long dialogue in verse with a member of their own fraternity. The custom among them is to present sprays of mango bloom to one another and to their friends, on the morning of Basanta Panchami.

This friendly present is sometimes accompanied by short poetical recitations in praise of spring, or as a compliment paid to the friend himself. The Bhats are by caste Brahmans whose ancestral occupation was in ancient times to compose songs and odes, and recite them on ceremonious occasions before public and private gatherings. Some of them still uphold their ancient calling, but have adopted other pursuits in addition, to serve as a means of livelihood. For the poet’s office, which was in ancient India a highly lucrative one, in consequence of the patronage of princes and nobles, c has now ceased to be an avenue to wealth or fortune.

It is probably our Indian poets, again, who have connected Basanta Panchami with the worship of Saraswati, the goddess of speech and learning, the goddess most invoked, most adored, by ancient writers. Saraswafci is often styled the Minerva of Hindu mythology; but this designation is really too narrow ; she combines 'in herself the functions of all the nine Muses of Greek mythology, presiding over the whole domain of letters, arts, and sciences, which Hindu philosophers have divided into sixty-four branches.

Some European scholars have been led into another error in trying to understand the true character of Saraswati : they have confounded the river *

Saraswati of Vedic literature with the goddess Saraswati of Brahmanical writings. They speak as though the latter had evolved out of the former, and their only reason, besides the identity of the two names, seems to be the fact that the goddess is a latter conception than the river-deity. Dr. Muir has even endeavoured to furnish an explanation of how the river Saraswati became gradually transfigured into the goddess of speech and learning. He says : “ When once the river had acquired a divine character, it was quite natural that she should be regarded as the patroness of the ceremonies which were celebrated on the margin of her holy waves, and that her direction and blessing should be invoked as essential to their proper performance and success. The connection, into which she was thus brought with sacred rites may have led to the further step of imagining her to have an influence on the composition of the hymns which formed so important a part of the proceedings, and of indentifying her with Vach, the goddess of speech.”

The above is no doubt a very ingenious exposition of the origin of the goddess Saraswati ; but the Hindu people still regard the two Saraswatis as absolutely distinct. The river Saraswati of the Vedas and the goddess Saraswati of the Puranas have nothing in common save the name, nor did the latter * evolve ’ out of the former, except in so far as we may say that the Puranas were * evolved ’ out of the Vedas. That the river is frequently spoken of as a goddess, is no proof that the river-deity was beginning to undergo transformation into the goddess of learning. Even if the river-deity is invoked by the authors of Vedic hymns, this is little evidence to show that she is being metamorphosed into another goddess. The river Saraswati is still revered as a goddess, only she has been relegated to the same rank to which the Godavari or the Narbada, or the Krishna belong. Almost every Indian river is regarded as a sacred stream, and personified as a god or goddess. There is no doubt that to the early Aryans the river Saraswati was what the Ganges is to their descendants ; her waters were instinct with divinity in every inch of her coarse ; and her influence must have inspired the composers of the Vedic hymns. There is also no doubt that she is often invoked as the goddess of speech and the patroness of science ; but this may be only the language of poetic personification. The Saraswati of the Puranas is a distinct personage from the Saraswati of the Vedas, and the confounding of the qpe with the other only reminds one of the historic confusion made by Burke, in one of his speeches on the impeachment of Warren Hastings^ between Hafiz Rahmat Khan, chief of the Rohillas, and the ^Persian poet Hafiz. The river-deity is now no longer recognised as a goddess entitled to practical adoration, among other reasons because the stream itself has practically dried up. Like other Vedic deities, such as Indra, or Agni, or Vayu, she has long become too classical to satisfy the modern demand for more and more personality and less and less abstraction in the gods and goddesses of the Hindu religion.