Indian Antiquary Vol 35

SR No.: 032527
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 434
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 67

FEBRUARY, 1906.)
HARVEST FESTIVALS OF GAURI AND GANESH,
61
The middle room is next visited and the questions repeated. This is the dining-hall, and a suitable" tall" description is given of feasts and banquets. The same request is repeated, as she is taken from room to room. The important" lying-in room” is never neglected, and the description of the cradle, the babies, and their pleasure-giving pranks are minutely detailed. The bundle is then replaced on a high stool or chair.
On the first night the chief food offered is the milk and sugar ksher, or porridge with wheat-flour rolls resembling small pieces of vermicelli. Before retiring for the night the plants are tied up into a mummy-like figure, with a woman's mask, dressed and decorated with ornaments, which is treated as the goddess Gauri.
Next morning the goddess so formed is worshipped as usual and she is offered a rice-cake, prepared like an omelette, with the aid of cocoanut kernel and raw sugar. Every married woman now takes a hand-spun cotton-thread of sixteen times her own height, places it before the goddess, and worships it.
If there be a new bride in the house (daughter-in-law), pan-cakes with pounded gram pulse (puran) and raw sugar are specially offered. Twenty-five bamboo winnowing-trays are then filled up with bangles, combs, red-powder boxes, turmeric-tubers, rice, a necklace of
glass-beads, dates, almonds, betel-leaves, betel nuts, a cocoanut, some fresh fruits and a bodice• piece. They are distributed by the new bride, who is carried in a palanquin with tom-tom, accompanied by female friends.
On the second night, all the girls in the honse sing songs and dance, keeping ap late, visiting the honses of girl friends for dancing and singing in front of Gauri. At midnight she is supposed to have to go away, that is, her 'spirit' departs, when an arti, consisting of incense and camphor, is offered.
The third day again sees her effigy worshipped. The food offered consists of crescentshaped pan-cakes, containing cocoanut kernel mixed with sugar. The 'one's own-measureskein' of thread of the previous day, which had been placed before the figure, is then lifted up, folded into a smaller skein, and to it sixteen knots are tied. It is then worshipped, dyed with turmeric and tied by each woman round her own neck. This curious necklace is retained until the eighth day of the second half of Ashvin, the next harvest time, and removed before the sun sets on that day. The knots are untied, the skein worshipped, sixteen ghi-lights are burnt before it, and sixteen til seeds (the crop is then ready), sixteen grains of rice, and flowers of cucumber are offered to it. The food prepared in hononr of this necklace, called mahdlakshmi, after the goddess of plenty and wealth, consists of the porridge described above. The thread is ultimately thrown into a river.
In regard to the chief goddess, Gauri, the Goddess of the Harvest, one great peculiarity remains to be mentioned. She is supposed to have been followed secretly by her husband Siva, who remains hidden under the outer fold of her sári (garment), and is represented by a lóta, covered by a cocoanut and filled with rice carefully measured for the reason given below.
Daring the third day of the ceremony the effigy of Gauri is thrown into a river or tank, and a handful of pebbles or sand is brought home from the spot, worshipped and then thrown all over the house and over the trees to bring good Inck to the house and to protect the trees from vermin. Before the image is taken away for disposal, in a fold of the sári it wears are placed rice, turmeric-tubers, and betel nuts. The woman who carries the figure is warned not to look behind her, as is the case when carrying dead bodies. The rice in the 16 a representing 'Siva is finally carefully measured, to see if the quantity has increased or decreased, in order to prognosticate the results of the next harvest.
In some families aghada (Achyrantes aspera) plants are used instead of the balsam or touch-me-not for the purposes of this ceremony.