Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 252

231
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
DECEMBER, 1933
season did not fall into disuse, and in the calendar two New Year's days were set down, one in the autumn and another in the spring, and on both those days the carnival referred to was celebrated. It is also of importance to note that this carnival fixed for celebration in the spring passed from Babylonia into Persia under the patronage of Anaitis or Ankhita.
As the Persian form of celebrating the carnival in the spring strongly resembles our Indian spring festival called Holi, I mention here the widely known fact that our samrat era begins in the month of Caitra, which is the Madhu month, or the first month of the vernal (madhava) season. It need hardly be stated that this reckoning of the New Year from the spring came into vogue in India very long ago, though the term samrat was not applied to the era to start with.
The old Persian way of observing the Sacaea may now be briefly described. When this carnival was celebrated in the spring, the king of the realm only nominally, or rather for appearance sake as observing the rules of the festival, ceased to rule temporarily, and a fool was chosen for the festive occasion as the bogus king. This bogus king, as Professor Langdon informs us, rode naked upon a horse, holding a fan and complaining on the heat. He was escorted by the king's servants and demanded tribute from everybody. Pots of reddened water were carried, with which all were bespattered, and the crowds in the streets enjoyed the fun very much. The people in general, men and women alike, are reported to have enjoyed these days in merry-making and in singing obscene songs, forgetting temporarily the usual moral habits of society. The fool, or bogus king, was bespattered with filth by the people, but he ceased to play the fool at the end of the carnival, and the real king reassumed his duties in a ceremonial manner.
We all very clearly see how our Holi festival agrees with the Sacaea in several details. In many villages in Bengal the practice still survives that a fool is dressed up in a funny fashion and is carried on a litter through the streets, the assembled crowd singing obscene songs and sprinkling reddened water on one another. This fool is called in Bengal Holir Raja, or the king of the Holi festival. It may also be mentioned here that in connection with the Holi festival in Bengal there is a ceremony called medá poda in which there is the symbolical burning in a hut of a lamb, an effigy of a lamb being made of rice paste. Another practice observed in many districts of Bengal should also be noticed. To celebrate the Holi festival an earthen manca is erected with three graduated floors, the top story being made the smallest. Access to the top floor, on which the idol of the presiding deity is seated for purpose of worship, is obtained by a winding staircase. The whole of this carthen manca looks almost like a Babylonian zikkurat in external appearance. It is well-known how throughout northern India the men go along the streets, sprinkling reddened water on everybody, and how they make indecent jokes at the womenfolk assembled by the roadside as onlookers. How there should be such a family resemblance between customs of Western Asia and of India, is not easy to determine.
Now it has to be carefully noted that of our Holi festival, which is so widely popular all over India, we get absolutely no trace either in the Vedic literature, or in the sacred texts of pre-Puråņic days. It cannot be that this festival of such wide popularity came suddenly into existence at some past time when the Puranic cults and practices commenced to come into force. Even though our very early religious works do not recognise it, we cannot but presume, looking to the existence of it in one form or another in all the provinces of India, that the festival with its main features must have been in vogue in India among the common people, while the Rishis and their orthodox successors were not disposed to recognise such vulgar rites. Independent growth of the festival in India and in Mesopotamia and Persia cannot be thought of, since the details are such as could not possibly originate in that manner. What relation, ethnic or cultural, subsisted in the remote past between India and parts of Western Asia, is a matter for serious research in the interest of the true history of our country. Attention need hardly be called to the importance to this inquiry of the results of the recent excavations at Harappa and Mohenjodaro and of Sir Aurel Stein's explorations between the Indus Valley and the Persian Gulf. I do not myself draw any inference from the facts set out above, but leave the question to scholars competent to deal with it.