Diwali

“ They have a caste committee or panchāyat for the punishment of social offences, which is headed by officials known as Mālik and Dīwān. Their favourite deity is Devi, and in her honour they sow the Jawaras or pots of wheat corresponding to the gardens of Adonis during the nine days prior to the Rāmnaomi and Dasahra festivals in March and September. Some of them carry their devotion so far as to grow the plants of wheat on their bodies, sitting in one posture for nine days and almost giving up food and drink. At the Diwāli festival they worship the furnace in which glass bangles are made. ”

“ So there is a summer festival, the Phul-dol, celebrated on a full-moon night in summer; and there is a rainy season festival, the Jhulan, falling on a full-moon night in the rainy season. All these four festivals were probably in their origin festivals merely in honour of the respective seasons, and had no necessary connexion with religion. They are now all religious festivals in honour of Krishna. It is to be observed, also, that there are these Mi-moon festivals for only four of the six seasons into which Hindus divide the year. There are none for the two divisions of the cold season. ”

“ And the reason why the fathers ordained that believers should fast on this day until the evening is this: The holy Apostles commanded in the Canon, saying, “If the festival of the Birth or the festival of the Baptism fall on the Fourth Day of the week, or on the Sixth Day of the week, let them eat in the morning every kind of food which is eaten at Pentecost, for these two festivals are to God, so that men may not imagine that we regale ourselves with the luxuries of this fleeting world. And let us not make our feasts with meats and drink like the festivals of the Jews and pagans.” ”

“ It is the only general fête for women during the year.
Not unlike this festival of the extreme south is the New Year's celebration at the mouth of the Ganges. Here there is a grand fair and jewels are cast into the river as propitiation to the river-goddess. Not long ago it was quite customary to fling children also into the river, but this usage has now been abolished. [45] Offerings are made to the Manes, general and particular, and to the All-gods. As with the Pongol, the feast is one of good-fellowship where presents are distributed, and its limit is the end of the third day. ”

“ What Christmas Day, with its toys and sweets and merry-making, is to the Christian child, the Moslem Feast Day, at the close of the Ramadhan Fast, is to the little men and women of Arabia. At that time every child must have a new gown of some bright color. On that gay day, in the bazaar, are sold delicious sweetmeats made only on this one occasion in the whole year. Every one is happy, for the weary month of fasting is at an end. ”

“ Various rites follow the great central sacrifice of the burnt-offering, ushered in by the most joyous festival of the year, the Feast of Tabernacles, when the people scatter themselves over the hills round Jerusalem under the shade of extemporised bowers made out of the leafy boughs of trees, and celebrate the goodness of God in the final and richest harvest, the vintage. Then come New Moon and the other festivals that stud the calendar with sacred dates and make the Jewish year a round of glad festivities. ”

“ To the stranger the Shráwan festival is the most innocent and least grotesque of the numerous so-called national festivals. It resembles the Christmas more than any other Hindu holiday. Members of a family that may have left the family-hearth on various purposes, meet again; old quarrels are made up, the sacred thread is changed, the new dress is put on (in too many cases the only new dress of the year!) , the flower and fruit offerings are placed before the gods. ”

“ Life, instead of being burdensome, is perfectly enjoyable. It will be easily seen that good and far-reaching consequences cannot fail to flow from such holidays, which some cry down as a relic of superstition and tomfoolery, though in reality they are a boon to mankind, and tend to relieve a great deal the dull monotony of life among the toiling millions. Though the Divali holidays are common to the whole of India, the mode of observing them varies in point of details in different parts. Moreover, this is but an imperfect description of the greatest festival of the Hindus. ”

“ These ancient Jewish festivals are no more; though the few thousand Jews in Jerusalem still keep the Passover, yet the Temple is gone, and there is no splendid ritual to attract the pious Jew, nor is there a large population — the remnant of the tribes — to send a throng of pilgrims to the solemn feasts. But Christian festivals have taken the place of the Jewish; to the Passover has succeeded the Holy Week, the great season of celebration by the Christian world, for which pilgrims are now hastening to the Holy City. As we press on, they gather before us and behind us, swelling the train. ”

“ Rose water, too, is used where people can afford it. Friends and relations meet and feast one another, and thus enjoy the spring in merriment. In many respects, the Divali holidays present a beautiful contrast to the, for the most part, unholy Holi holidays. Divali holidays begin soon after the monsoon season which is also the time of fasting. So the feasting during the Divali holidays is all the more enjoyable. While the Holi holiday follow the winter which is the time for taking concentrated foods of all sorts, such foods are left off during the Holi holidays. ”

“ The month of Ramadan is spent by the faithful followers of the Prophet in a long fast, and the night before it is broken, called Lailatul-Kadr, or "night of power," is celebrated in rejoicing, because it is the night on which the Koran is supposed to have come down from heaven. In the morning following, which is as much a day of rejoicing as our Christmas, the men of Islam gather at the mosques and engage in a service of thanksgiving to Allah for the blessings they and their families have enjoyed during the year past, and pray for a repetition of the same mercies for the year to come. ”

“ Six weeks following the Eid of Ramazan, the day of festival which concludes the month of fast, is the [280] great Eid-i-Kurban, or Feast of Sacrifices, and on this day all men, no matter how poor, see that they have new clothes to put on; and should a man be so poor that he cannot do so, he spends the day alone in his house, unable to face his friends, shamed and miserable. ”

“ What considerations led the ecclesiastical authorities to institute the festival of Christmas? The motives for the innovation are stated with great frankness by a Syrian writer, himself a Christian. "The reason," he tells us, "why the fathers transferred the celebration of the sixth of January to the twenty-fifth of December was this. It was a custom of the heathen to celebrate on the same twenty-fifth of December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. ”

“ Ramazan is the only part of the year when the mosque is brightly lighted. It is a strange festival, and lasts a whole month.
The days are given up to fasting, and the nights to services in the mosques, to feasts, and frolics. ”

“ The women are not allowed to work: the men may. Good eating and drinking particularly distinguish this festival. The feast of the passover commences on the fifteenth day of the month Nisan, and continues among Jews who live in or near Jerusalem seven days, and elsewhere eight days. The Sabbath preceding is called the great Sabbath, and is kept with most scrupulous strictness. The mode and materials for making the unleavened cakes for the passover are most minutely described by the rabbies, as well as all the ceremonies of this feast. ”

“ Then began such times as were never before nor since seen in Daybyday; with holiday after holiday for the people, with festivals and parades, with carnivals and games, with feasting and dancing; until the chief occupation of the people was forgotten--until their many temples were empty, their many gods neglected; until with a fete extraordinary, Seemsto-Be decreed that there should be from henceforth and forever, in Daybyday, one temple only--one temple sacred to one god, the god Things-Are-Good-Enough. ”

“ The Bairam festival after Ramadan lasts three days, and is not unlike our Christmas. The master of a house gives each servant a suit of clothes or some other presents, and the working people generally go round to call on those from whom they may hope to extract gifts. Everybody goes to the mosque to say his prayers, and friends who meet there indulge in a good deal of embracing and kissing. They visit each others’ houses and have a good time generally, and altogether the festival of Bairam puts the city in a very picturesque condition. ”

“ Ramadan is the most sacred month in the year, and every Moslem is directed to fast every day during that month. From sunrise to sunset he must abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, and smelling perfumes, and from all indulgence of a worldly character. ”

“ Several of the ancient cycles were, however, used by the early Church in fixing what are called the "movable feasts"; these being regulated not by the solar year, as Christmas or the 4th of July is, but by the lunar year. But, as most of these feasts depend upon or are regulated by Easter, we need consider this one only. In the early days the churches of Asia kept their Easter upon the day on which the Jews celebrated their passover, i. e., on the fourteenth day of their first month, which began with the new moon next after the vernal equinox. ”

“ Finding [82] in almost every nation a festival at the winter solstice, in commemoration of the accouchement of the celestial, virgin queen of heaven, and the birth of the sun-god, the Christian fathers decided to adopt the 25th of December as the natal day of their Christ.
Mithras, Osiris, Horus, Bacchus, Adonis and Buddha were all said to have been born on this day, and it is the date of one of the greatest religious festivals of India, during which the people decorate their houses with garlands and make presents to relatives and friends ”

“ Season festivals, as the Dol Jatra and the three other full-moon festivals. Agricultural festivals, which are in honour of Lakshmi, the Hindu Ceres. Mythological festivals, like the Kali Puja and the Jugaddhatri, which appear to be the most modern of all. Lastly, festivals which apparently owe their origin to the popular dread of some physical agent of mischief, as the Manasa festival, celebrated to propitiate snakes. In the whole range of Hindu festivals, I have been unable to trace any to a historical origin. ”

“ In the Indian Empire, the day which corresponds to our New Year is called “Hooly” and is a feast in honour of the god Krishna. Caste temporarily loses ground and the prevailing colour is red. Every one who can afford it wears red garments, red powder is thrown as if it were confetti, and streams of red water [Pg 17] are thrown upon the passers-by. It is all taken in good part, however, as snowballing is with us.
Even “farthest North,” where the nights are six months long, there is recognition of the New Year. ”

“ This completes the principal Feasts of the Muslim year.
Among other practices borrowed from the Hindus must be placed the pilgrimage made by Indian Musalmáns to the [258] shrines of Saints, the ceremonies connected with them and the festivals instituted in their honour. Properly speaking, the Sunnís have but two festivals—the Baqr-'Íd and the 'Íd-ul-Fitr, but many others are now observed. Of these I have described several. It only remains to notice a few of the festival days which are peculiar to India. ”

“ The Vasant Panchami is the spring festival when Hindu girls and married women carry gifts of lighted lamps and new-grown corn as offerings to the goddess of the spring and set them afloat on the face of the waters. Hindu widows cannot take part in any festive ceremonials. ”

“ Ramazan (or Ramadan) is the ninth month of the Muhammadan year, which is observed as a month of fasting and penance, during which rigid Moslems may neither eat, drink, wash, nor caress their wives, excepting so far as is necessary to support life. Sha'ban is the month immediately preceding it. Shawwal is the month that follows it, which begins with the great feast of Bairam, the festival referred to in line 4. ”

“ Thus the New Year festival called Trŭ̃t (or Krŭ̃t) Thăi lasts three days. On the first two days, especially the second, crowds fill the temples to offer flowers before the statues of Buddha and more substantial presents of food, clothes, etc., to the clergy. Well-to-do families invite monks to their houses and pass the day in listening to their sermons and recitations. Companies of priests are posted round the city walls to scare away evil spirits and with the same object guns are fired throughout the night. ”

“ The phantom of the next day, with the dreary five to follow, sate as a load upon my poor Sabbath recreations. What charm has washed that Ethiop white? What is gone of Black Monday? All days are the same. Sunday itself—that unfortunate failure of a holyday as it too often proved, what with my sense of its fugitiveness, and over-care to get the greatest quantity of pleasure out of it—is melted down into a week day. I can spare to go to church now, without grudging the huge cantle which it used to seem to cut out of the holyday. I have Time for everything. I can visit a sick friend. ”

“ A particular day is fixed for striking a balance, generally, I believe, Easter Monday, just after a season when the custom of centuries has made it incumbent upon the Indians to spend all that they have and all that they can borrow upon church-fees, wax-candles, and rockets, for the religious ceremonies of the season, and the drunken debauches which form an essential part of the festival. ”