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| Nepal's Religious Festivals |
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| Phagu Poornima |
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Phagu Poornima also known as Holi is the festival of colour. It is observed for eight days just before the full moon of Phalgun during which time townsmen indulge in colour throwing at each other. The festival of colour is always heralded by the sticking of wooden pole known as chir with colourful streamers beside the old royal palace at Basantapur by the arrangement of the Government Religious Endowment (Guthi) Office. This festival is observed with most joy and gaity in the Terai region of the country. The festival is terminated with the burning of the pole on the night preceding the Phalgun full moon.
Holi announces the arrival of spring and the passing of winter. It is a festival that breathes an atmosphere of social merriment, writes Sanchita Regmi Joshy The tender green leaves on trees, the blossomed flowers in the gardens and the sweet calls of the Cuckoo mark the advent of a new season that is Spring (vasant). Enriching the freshness is the festival of Phagu Poornima with a splurge of colors and an aura of romance all around.
Phagu or Holi, is an extremely popular festival observedthroughout the country. It is especially marked by unmixed gaiety and frolics and is common to all sections of the people. This festival is very ancient. Holi announces the arrival of spring and thepassing of winter. It is a festival that breathes an atmosphere of social merriment.
People bury their hatchets with a warm embrace and throw their worries to the wind. Every nook and corner presents a typically colourful sight. Young and old alike are drenched with colors (red, green, yellow, blue, black and silver). On Holi, people are suddenly caught unawares with colors being poured from atop the houses, bursting balloons, or long pistons squirting coloured water. People in small groups are seen singing, dancing and throwing colours on each other. Phagu Poornima has long traditional links with several legends. According to one popular legend, the word Holi is derived from the demoness, Holika. She was the sister ofHiranyakashyap, a demon king, who having defeated the Gods proclaimed his own supremacy over everyone else in the Universe.
Enraged by his son Prahlad's ardentdevotion to Lord Vishnu, Hiranyakashyap decides to punish him. He takes the help of his sister, Holika, who is immune to any damage from fire. Holika carries Prahlad into the fire but a divine intervention destroys her and saves Prahlad from getting burned. Thus Phagu is celebrated to mark the burning of the evil Holika. It is a celebration of the triumph of good over evil. Holi is celebrated throughout Nepal to some extent, but it is more predominant in the Terai region. Preparations for the festival begin a week before.
Powdered colors and spraying pistons are bought. In earlier days the colors were extracted from a flower that blossoms only during this festival. And the pistons were made of bamboo sticks. But over the years colors are made artificially and pistons made of different materials are available in various designs. Usually people burn the Holika tree on the eve of Phagu. Folklore and dances are performed around the fire to welcome the new season especially amongst the terai community. On the morning of Holi, people have fun with colored water. Men, women and children all participate in this merry making. In the evening, youngsters play with dry colors and seek elders' blessings.
Special dishes for the occasion is a typical fare. People visit each other's houses and savor the delicious eats, be it Dahi wada or a preparation of raw Jackfruit or the traditional Mal pua (a dessert made of maida, milk, sugar and dry fruits). Phagu is as important a festival as Dashain and Deepawali. Even though some people do not get involved, the spiritof communal harmony is very high. People indulge in merry-making and playing with colored waters is a common sight.
| Phagu Porrinma - Festival of colours |
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Poornima or Holi, one of the national festivals, is marked by an overwhelming use of different colours, principally the vermilion for eight straight days, beginningfrom the eighth day of the waxing moon, culminating on the full moon day or Poornima. Phagu in the local language means playing with colours. This festival is celebrated as a victory of the good over the evil and an occasion for establishing friendship. And to put red powder to strangers on this day is not considered as an offence.
Holi generally occurs at the beginning of March or sometimes in late February. Recognising it as a national festival, the government gives a public holiday on the full moon day in the capital and the rest of the hilly districts, while it gives public holiday in the Terai districts the following day, as people in the Terai mainly celebrate the festival the next day. Holi begins eight days prior to the full moon day, with the installation of Chir - meaning cloth in the Nepali language - a bamboo pole decorated with the strips of colourful cloth with three umbrella-like tiers. Such Chirs are erected in public at places amid joy and show.
In Kathmandu, Chir is
planted at Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square with throwing the sacred vermilion
powder on the pole and the onlookers gathered around the area. From this
day on playing with the colours, Phagu, is considered permissible and especially
children and adolescents begin throwing vermilion among each other including
the passers-by.
| Phagu Porrinma in western Nepal |
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Customarily, the festival is an occasion when the young boys and girls who otherwise could not come into contact. In the western part of Nepal, the day is taken as a licence to proposing a girl. Boys of marriageable age give some money to their dream girls on this day, which in their dialect is called Sai. If a boy gives a Sai to a girl on this day she is booked and the boy can marry her at his convenience.
Young boys and girls in the western hilly
region of the kingdom indulge themselves in a Dohori, a repartee in which
they exchange their views through chorus song afterthey are tired of playing
with colours. A large number of people surround them and encourage both
sides to win the competition. This is expected to bring them closer and
further strengthen ties of friendship.
| Different mode |
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The mode of observing the festival differs from place to place. People in the urban areas make use of water-filled balloons, commonly known as Lolas, and other different types of colour powders including vermilion while people in the Terai prefer using various colours to water-filled balloons. Similarly, the locals in the remote hilly regions simply play with those colours they prepare from the powder of local plants and flowers where vermilion is not available.
Tharus, the indigenous inhabitants of the Terai, celebrate Phagu as their main festival. All the villagers together go for fishing a day before Phagu Poornima and burn the Chir in the evening. The next day they invite alltheir married daughters and their husbands and children and eat lavish food and drink. Fish is a compulsory food item among the Tharu community during this festival.
Under the intoxication of alcohol, they gather at the place of their god and begin singing, dancing and playing trumpets, which they call Hori, a folk dance. They pray to god to bestow them with power so that they could vanquish their adversaries. They begin the singing and dancing from the home of the landlord of their village and later,go to individual houses in their vicinity. And they organise a common party with the money thus raised. They also believe that burning the Chir, the symbol of Holika, a demoness who attempted to kill Lord Krishna, would bring happiness in their life throughout the year.
Besides, they also
use the occasion to settle their annual accounts on this day. Generally,
they make verbal agreements and in some cases written to send their children to
others house as bonded labourers for a year, to work as servants, cow herders
and ploughmen. The religious interpretation of Holi is linked to Lord Krishna
who is known for establishing courtship with 1,600 Gopinis or milkmaids
of Brindaban in India.
The
legend
Padma Purane Krishna Bachanam, a religious scripture says that those who erect a Chir on the eighth day of the bright fortnight of the month of Phagunand keep on worshipping it till Poornima with scented vermilion and play with the red powder remembering Lord Krishna, he will be pleased and grant happiness. Legends have it that all the evil deeds committed or that took place during the year are burnt down with the burning of the Chir on Poornima, the last day of the festival.
According to one interpretation of the event, Holi is the marking of victory of the good over the evil or wicked. It is believed that Lord Krishna, who came to this earth in Dwapar, one of the four eras mentioned in the Hindu religious texts, was fed infant Krishna with poisonous breast of a demon called Putana at the behest of Krishna's maternal uncle Kansa.
While feeding breast to Krishna the fiendish woman died and the locals of Brindaban cremated the demon on bright full moon night of Phagun, Phagu Poornima. And they celebrated the day with great rejoice. And continued to this day.
There is another interpretation of the festival that matches with the way the occasion is marked as Holi. In ancient time a demon named King Hiranyakashyap made efforts to kill his own son Pralhad as he became an ardent devotee of Lord Krishna in his boyhood. As thedemon's previous attempts to finish Pralhad proved in vain, he ordered his sister Holika who was immune to fire, to take the child and jump into a furnace prepared to destroy Pralhad.
But to his horror, the fire consumed Holika and Pralhad was unscathed, sitting among the embers as Lord Krishna's blessings were with the child. And the believers in the god celebrated the occasion as the end of Holika. And it is believed that the festival is named after the demon to celebrate the end of the fiend. Hence, it is also called Holi.
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