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RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
Bathing and fasting, and the offering of sesamum seeds to the Manes, are enjoined on the full moon of Mágha, and it is also held in additional honour as the anniversary of the commencement of the Kali Yug, or present age of the world, the age of impurity. According to some authorities the anniversaries of the Yugas occur not on the days of opposition, or full moon, but on those of conjunction or new moon, and this is more consonant to the character of the rites principally practised, as bathing and libations of water and sesamum to the Dii Manes. Thus the Vishnu Purána observes, the fifteenth of Mágha in the dark fortnight is one of the days called by ancient teachers the Anniversaries of the first day of a Yuga or Age, and are esteemed most sacred; on these days water mixed with sesamum seeds should be regularly presented to the progenitors of mankind; and again, the Pitris are described as saying, "After having received satisfaction for a twelvemonth we shall further derive it from libations offered by our descendants at some holy place at the end of the dark fortnight of Mágha."
SÁKÁSHTAMÍ.-Ninth of the solar month Phalguna; Eighth day of lunar month Phalguna, dark half (22nd February).-This is another of the eighth lunar days dedicated to the Manes, when their worship is to be performed with the usual accompaniments of bathing and abstinence, and offerings to the Viswadevas or universal gods. On this occasion the offerings presented to the Pitris are, as the name imports,
