29 – Exploring the Myths Behind The Festival of Colors

The thread of intertwined tales on mythology we were working through together, on this blog has reached an interesting point. The number of versions of the tales are so many, that to truly appreciate the same we would need a lot of cross-referencing and footnotes.
So, I was thinking that I would (perhaps) convert a refined version of them into a book (or books, no promises!).

In the meanwhile, to keep us all engaged, can we try a semi-serious look (‘scopos’ in Greek) at the stories (‘mythos’ in Greek) and the reasons (‘logos’ in Greek) behind a few of these holidays (optional, exigency or mandatory) for the festivals and rituals?

We will see if we can use these forays to also take the existing narrative forward. Hence the choice of the festivals used (and the order we discuss them) would be decided based on the narrative’s context. So we won’t be able to do a comprehensive list, nor would it be chronologically aligned to the calendar, or alphabetical for ease of later reading.

So here goes!

Whenever someone wants to show the vibrancy of the Indian culture, be it in Hollywood movies, or Bollywood movies, or even serious documentaries, one representation of a festival of colors is considered to be a must. It is a festival of unbridled joy and fun.

I was talking about the festival of Holi. Though it is shown randomly in the aforementioned movies and documentaries, the actual date of this festival is fixed (in the lunar calendar not the Solar or Gregorian calendar). It falls on the full moon day (i.e. after the night with full moon), or Purnima of the month of Phalguna.

Indian calendars are either ending (‘antah’) with the new moon (‘amavasya’) hence called ‘amavasyantah’ or ‘amantah’, or ending with the full moon (‘purnima’) hence called ‘purnimantah’. In months named by any of these methods, the waxing moon cycle or shukla paksha, falls in the same month. So Holi falls on Phalguna Poornima of both the amavasyantah (here in the first fortnight) and the poornimantah (here in the second fortnight) method calendars.

We will try to cover the most well known origin story of the festival. The story explains the traditions observed on the eve of the main festival, and give a reference to the name.

Quite a few of the adversaries in Indian mythological tales are Daityas, i.e. the sons (and daughters) of Maharishi Kashyapa (translatable to ‘the great sage’ who was ‘the one with black teeth’) with one of his wives, Diti (literally ‘the limited one’).

One of these Daityas, and reportedly one of their early leaders, was Hiranyāksha (literally ‘the One with the Golden/Yellow Eye’). He was killed by the hands (or maybe tusks) of the Varāha (‘the wild boar’) avatāra (‘descent’) of Lord Vishnu (‘the all pervading one’).

This was despite a very specific boon of near immortality Hiranyāksha got from his great-grandfather, Lord Brahmā (literally ‘the one who grows or helps others grow’).

This is not the story of the defeat of this golden-eyed Daitya.

Hiranyāksha’s elder (or younger, or twin) brother was called HiranyaKashipu (his name meaning ‘the One with the Golden/Yellow Seat’). He too was a sworn enemy of Vishnu, and also assumed a leadership position of the Daityas.

Hiranyakashipu’s son was Prahlāda (‘great joy’ or ‘the one who comes before joy’). This son was a great devotee of Vishnu. At the end, the father tried to kill the son, and to save the devotee, Vishnu took another descent (‘avatāra’) in the form of NaraSimha (‘the man-lion’).

Incidentally, Hiranyakashipu had an even more specific boon of near immortality from his great-grandfather Lord Brahmā.

There seems to be a pattern here.

This story is not about the death of the golden-seated Daitya as well.

These Daitya brothers had a sister. She was named Simhikā (literally the Lioness). She had a boon from Agni, the god of Fire, that she would be immune from being burnt by fire. This seems to have been in the form of an enchanted piece of cloth.

This particular origin story of Holi, the festival of joy and love, is the story of how the un-burnable Simhika burned to her death, while her joyful nephew Prahlāda survived. By the way we have covered this story earlier.

Hiranyakashipu, as we know, had a boon of near immortality which made it impossible that he be killed by any divine or mortal entity, creature or person. This along with his personal strength and the strength of his armies, allowed him to become the master of all the worlds – mortal (‘bhu’), astronomical (‘bhuvar’) and divine (‘svar’). Having conquered all the worlds, Hiranyakashipu made it punishable by death to support or say “worship-ful” or positive words about Vishnu. In fact he made even the utterance of the name of Vishnu a crime.

It was to his great consternation (and may be embarrassment) that his son, Prahlāda, was an ardent worshipper of Vishnu, from his birth (and as per the origin story from before that).

After many attempts to turn his own son from the worship of Vishnu, Hiranyakashipu lost his temper, and decided to get him killed. May be he thought, that if his own son was not following his decree, it would make others also try to rebel against his orders. This diktat of his was attempted to be fulfilled by his followers many times, but all of them failed – either by luck, or through the intervention of Vishnu.

In one such attempt, Simhikā sat, with Prahlāda in her lap, in a pyre of fire. The idea was that Simhikā would be saved from the fire, due to her fire-proof garment, and Prahlāda would burn. It is said that by a freak act of nature (or divine will) the fireproof garment fell on Prahlāda, and so he was unharmed, while Simhikā died in the fire.

Come to think of it, the freak act of nature may have been the love of an aunt for her nephew becoming stronger than her enmity for her brother’s enemy. In fact the festival that uses this as an origin story, is about joy and friendship, and is supposed to be when you try and forget past enmity.

Reportedly, to commemorate this saving of Prahlāda (and burning of his aunt Simhikā), on the night of the full moon in Phālgun, bonfires are made of scavenged leaves, dry wood and dung cakes. The community gathers around it, and are led by the elders in worshipping the bonfire. Importance is given to the use of some coloured powder. This is called Holikā Dahan, or ‘the burning of Holikā’. It seems Simhikā was also known as Holikā.

There is some worship of deities involved (mainly Vishnu), though without any strict scriptural guidelines “meant to be followed”… yet.

The grown-ups make up the way of this worship as they go on, ably guided by the newly minted (‘nutan’) forever old-timers (‘sanaatan’) found in every corner of our nation, who know exactly what needs to be done. This is based on their elephantine memory (‘smriti’), with little or no support from any accepted reference (‘sruti’), hence impossible to have a mistake (‘truti’). Earlier they were present in person, but nowadays via videos uploaded on social networking platforms.

The fun starts after that. Dried coconuts, grains, sesame seeds, chickpeas, and other pulses are thrown into the bonfire. These make some noise. Sometimes it’s a popping sound. If the pulses are in semi-parched pods, they produce a kind of whistling sound.

These semi-parched pods are sometimes called holaka. Is it possible? Could the festive celebration of the spring season get its name from these offerings? These produce of side-crops?

This fun and loud activity is led by the youngsters. There is a good amount of dancing around. People partake of the roasted items from the bonfire. They also enjoy traditional sweets, which use long storage ingredients expected to be available in a farming community, i.e. roasted grain flour, ground up dried pulses and dried coconut powder, sweetened by jaggery.

In some cases, popcorn is also made. We should assume it is a later addition since corn is an imported grain for the Indian subcontinent.

And along with the roasted items and sweets, some partake in natural hallucinogens like bhāng. There is also consumption of fermented alcohol. However, I assure you these substances are neither ordained nor specifically banned. The important word her is “specifically”. But hey, why talk of rules in this festival that celebrates rule-breaking, right?

Whenever and wherever there is a bonfire and young people, there is dancing. Singing and a bit of horsing around follow. This soon devolves into throwing of water, mud, sundry flower petals, and colors on each other.

This brings us to the next day., when the youth (in age or in spirit) take to the open streets.

Now bear with me, as we go to an earlier simpler time (may be hypothetical may be not).

The next day, wayward embers remain from the burning of the vestiges of the fall season (‘patajhadd’). These embers pose a danger for an agrarian society. So again the youngsters take charge. They move around with water (in pails or water syringes), as well as dry sand. These they use to douse the probable fire-starter embers. They receive some renumeration from the wealthy farmers for this service. The payment is collected in advance or on the same day. They use the new-found wealth for getting tasty morsels or even inebriating substances.

Let us return to the current, more recognisable, world.

Whenever there is youth with good food and intoxicating substances, the proceedings evolve into a free-for-all celebration of joy. This happens instead of the earlier utilitarian chore of dousing fire remnants. Think of it, this occurs without any particular reason.

There are color fights. Troupes of men and women smear each other with various colors. They use dry powder instead of sand or coloured water instead of plain old water.

Soon everyone is unrecognizable, and mischief abounds. It is mostly good-natured, and is seen by manu as an occasion to mend old/strained friendships or kindle new one’s. This interestingly is traditionally called dhuli-vandan, or ‘worship of the dust’. It is more commonly called Rangwāli Holi, or ‘holi of colors’.

There is another story connected with this date, connected with the story of Lord Shiva. Let’s try and cover that in short as well. In fact that is the point where we left the main story trail in post #23.

You may recall that there was a sad event when Lord Shiva’s wife, Lady Sati, committed self immolation due to disrespect shown by her father towards her husband. Post that, Lord Shiva had closed himself up against the world of senses. This was a problem as the powerful daitya Tārakāsura had got a boon of near-immortality from Lord Brahmā, wherein he was unkillable other than by a boy of seven years age, who had to be the son of Lord Shiva (who was, as of then, childless as well as partner-less).

In the meanwhile, there was an awesome individual entity, sometimes depicted as a man sometimes as a mountain. He is sometimes called Himācala as he was the personification of the northern range of mountains Himālaya. He was also called Parvateswara and considered the sovereign king ruling over that mountainous region. His wife was Menā (‘knowledge’). She was the daughter of the Pitrīdevas and Svadhā. Svadhā was a daughter of Daksha, and hence sister to Sati.

This niece of Sati had been quite close to her aunt. During certain conversations, Menā was promised that her aunt Sati would be reborn as her and Parvateswara’s daughter. May be Devi Sati had a premonition of her impending demise.

This couple was blessed with three daughters. We discussed this in post #22.

Out of them the youngest was called Pārvati, literally ‘daughter of Parvat(eswara)’.

She started undertaking austere penance to get Shiva as husband. Her mother Menā tried to stop her, by saying ‘U Mā’, i.e “O (child) do not”. So she was also called Umā.

Before her birth, Brahmā requested an intervention. The goddess of primeval night, Nishā, entered her in embryonic phase. This was to make her dark complexioned. Hence she was also sometimes referred to as ‘the dark one’ or ‘Kāli’. This differentiated her from her reddish hued sister Rāgini and her fair-complexioned sister Gangā (or Kutilā in some references).

This chromatic differentiation may be an interesting thread that we can pick at together… later! As later Pārvati undertook penance to get a fair complexion, and become the fair one or ‘Gauri’. The dark sheath that got removed from her then was called ‘the one from the sheath or cells’ or Kaushiki. When she was enraged, and went and killed demons, SHE was now called Kāli.

So back to the story of Holi, before we get further derailed in the myriad mythoscopy threads.

As Shiva was undertaking deep penance which included abstinence from all thoughts of conjugal happiness, the gods (who were now reduced to monkeys dancing for the humour of Tārakāsura) thought something needed to be done.

They instigated the god of amorous love, Kāmdeva. He is also known as ‘the one who intoxicates’, Madana. He is called ‘the one who breaks the pride of even god’, Kandarpa. This was to make sure Shiva is smitten by Pārvati.

Kāmadeva went with his wife Rati, the female embodiment of ‘desire’. His able supporter Vasanta, the embodiment of spring season, accompanied them. Kāmadeva shot his arrows of desire on Shiva. The arrows found their mark. Shiva’s penance of self-control was broken. He saw the beauty of Pārvati. He also noticed the signs that this was a reincarnation of his wife Sati.

But instead of being thankful of the intervention of Kāmdeva, he was angered by the unnecessary haste shown by the devas. He opened his third eye of destruction, and burnt Kāmdeva to ashes.

The ash and this end of Kāmadeva by Shiva has given rise to many stories.

First, seeing the end of her beloved, Rati cried out and asked Shiva to bring him back to life. So he made Kāma alive but now without a body. The ashes flew and fell on the body of Shiva, and he is worshipped hence as bhashmānga (‘the one who has ashes on his body’).

Second, on the entreaty of Rati, Shiva granted a boon that her partner would be reborn in Dwāpara Yuga as the son of Krishna. She was told to bide her time. Rati went and disguised herself as Māyawati (‘the one who is adept with illusions’), and took up services with an asura called Shambara (his name can mean ‘best’ or ‘religious rite’). Later this asura kidnapped the reincarnated Kāmdeva, as a seven day old son of Krishna and Rukmini, called Pradyumna. Mayawati (Rati) helped Pradyumna (Kāmdeva) to get free and kill Shambarāsura.

Third, the ashes of Kāmadeva were later fashioned into a statue which was brought to life. This entity was called Bhanda, which may mean both ‘an earthen vessel’ (as he was fashioned in a pottery fashion) or ‘happiness’ (as this brought happiness to Rati). As this entity was born from the death of desire and the anger of Shiva, he was not very friendly. He was powerful enough to defeat all devas. To end him, the form of Shakti called Tripurasundari (‘the beauty unmatched in all three worlds’) or Lalita (‘the graceful one’). After death of THIS negative form, i.e. Bhandāsura, Devi gave the boon of Kāmadeva’s reincarnation in a positive form in the Dwāpara Yuga. And then the story is same as the second story.

To commemorate the burning of desire (‘Kāmadahana’) by Shiva, bonfires are lit. And on the next day, the reincarnation of Kāmadeva is celebrated as Holi, where people are allowed to express desire through playful banter, dancing and colour-play.

The burning of Kāmadeva was not to vain, as there was the intended impact of his shafts of desire. It was enough for Shiva to look at the beautiful Pārvati and realize that she was an incarnation of Sati. This, when strengthened by the long penances undertaken by Pārvati, made Shiva let go of his (earlier) determination to remain unencumbered with relationships.

A series of interesting events began. These events give us stories of the death of Tārakasura. They also tell of the birth of Kārtikeya and Ganesha, who are sons of Shiva and Pārvati. The birth of Ashokasundari, a daughter of Shiva and Pārvati, is part of these stories. Hanuman’s birth is also among them. Hope to look at these stories together sometime in the future.

So, Happy Holi to one and all! May our colourful life’s become part of a bigger story, and may stories bring colour to our life’s.