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RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
also termed Mákarí Saptamí, the seventh lunar day of the sun in Capricornus. It may be doubted if the term Mákarí is rightly understood, even by the original authorities. Raghunandana considers it to designate the whole month of Mágha, which, regarded as a solar month, should commence with the sun's entrance into the sign. There may, however, be something more in it, and it may originally have been identical with the Uttarayana, when the sun is equally an especial object of adoration, and either a change of computation depending on astronomical periods, or the purpose of multiplying festivals, has detached it from its primitive position.
In Upper India, the day is also called Achalá Saptami, the fixed or immovable seventh, because it is said it is always to be held sacred. In the South it is better known as the Ratha Saptamí, or Seventh of the Chariot; for it is also the first day of a Manwantara, or period of the reign of a Manu, being that of Vivaswat, when the sun comes abroad in a new carriage. Agreeably to the directions given in the Kalpa Taru, for the proper observance of this rite, the sun should be worshipped in his own temple—a temple it would now be difficult to discover in any part of India--with prayers and offerings upon the sixth; during which abstinence is to be practised, and at night the worshipper is to sleep on the ground. He is to bathe and fast on the seventh, as before described, but he is also to construct a car of gold, or silver, or wood, with horses and driver; and after the
