No apology is needed for bringing out a volume on the festivals of Tamilnadu. The Tamils have a glorious and continuous heritage of classical literature and culture which goes back to a period two thousand and five hundred years. They are reputed the world over as great temple builders. And what are temples if not seats of festivals? Classical Tamil Literature is said to be of three divisions, Iyal, Isai and Natakam, namely poetry, music and dance. Music and dance are accompaniments to any celebration of festivals. They are even prescribed as symbols of honour in a temple worship and festival-gita, vadya, nirutta-music} vocal and instrumental, and dance out of a total of sixteen such symbols of honour (the shodasa upachara).
This is no doubt a book of Hindu festivals. The festivals here dealt with mostly relate to India, but are special to Tamil Nadu. All the festivals detailed here are ancient, having been celebrated probably over a period of more than twenty centuries. Christian and Muslim festival days are common not only to India but to other countries in Asia, Africa and Europe, as these two religions are extensively followed outside India. Today we are having a spate of foreign scholars and tourists visiting India and they visit us certainly not to know Christianity and Islam as practised in India, but to know Hinduism, its society and its ancient civilisation, is philosophy and culture its institutions, and the way of life of its people and so on. Hence I believe I am justified in confining myself only to the festivals of Hinduism here, in this book of Tamil Nadu festivals.
Occasionally, festivals in the other regions of India may be seen to be elaborately dealt with here though these are outside the scope of the work, yet some of them have important common features with Tamil Nadu celebrations, and it may be an advantage to learn how other people react to our own festive occasions. Some of them are given in detail. Examples are Raksha Bandhanam (mostly north India), Onam (Kerala) and Holi (again north India). There are yet some other Tamil Nadu festivals where some idea of how they are celebrated elsewhere is also given. 5 examples are Dipavali in Kerala, Durga puja in Bengal, Ganesa Chaturthi in Maharashtra and so on. These may help towards a better understanding of even our own festivals.
There are three aspects to every festival in the land.
The first is the ritualistic aspect – the various steps of its celebration, whether it be in the home or in the temple, the performance of a puja, preliminary arrangements etc.
The second is the legend aspect – the ancient stories which had grown round it, which had caused the origins of the festival, the benefits attained by some who celebrated it early in the history of the society, and so on.
The third is the philosophical or esoteric aspect which gives significance to the celebration and which has kept it alive through so many centuries. In many, the philosophical aspects may not be fully explicit; but a social significance may be apparent.
An attempt is here made to explain the significance of some of the obscure festivals and observances such as the Adippuram festival, Akshaya Trithiyai, Mahalaya Amavasya etc. The romantic and story aspects are well explained in most cases.
Normally it is not worthwhile to question or change established conventions. We in Tamil Nadu have a way of celebrating great people. One way is to celebrate the birth day, while another is to celebrate the day of passing away. The Vaishnavas celebrate the day of birth, of their Alvar and Acharyas, while the Saivas celebrate the day of passing away of their Nayanmars and Acharyas. (The rationale behind this has been explained in the appropriate place – page 316). These have all been fixed and cannot be questioned or changed now.
Mahatma Gandhi was born on 2nd October 1869 and, after he became the champion fighter in the Independence struggle continues to be celebrated as a great national holiday and the day of celebration for him has not been changed.
The festivals seem to constitute in a sense the eternal religion of India, particularly Tamilnadu. We need not know when the celebration of festivals by society or the state started. Saint Tirujnanasambandhar mentions a series of monthly festivals for the twelve months which were popular in his day (the seventh century). Most of them continue to this day almost unchanged both in the manner of celebration and in their significance. Festivals are the outward social expression of the communal joy of the people and they have helped to retain the best in the past culture and by the celebrations in the present, band it down to the future generations. Festivals, mostly conservative, do not lend themselves easily to changes but continue to be rigid and the very rigidity opens up as it were a window for us to have a peep into the past.
Mode of observance of festivals has not changed. Lamp, incense, camphor, fragrant flowers, sandal, turmeric and kumkum with the ever-present betels., plantain fruits and coconuts are there, both in the domestic festivals and in the temple festivals. Instead of the ancient oil lamps, we may have electric lamps but yet, the oil lamp is there if not in the centre, at least in a corner symbolically. Camphor might have been introduced in to our country some where about the 4-6th centuries a.d. in the place of an oil lamp for waving before the deity ( aradana). But the others are unchangeable and irreplaceable. The kolam and festoons are part of the decorations for any festival. Baths, a personal discipline of fasting, vigil in some cases, bath in the rivers or the sea, circumbulation, tying of the piece of yellow string round the neck or the wrist, new clothes in some cases, and the special food offerings which are special for each occasion – all together have kept up further a continuity of the ancient culture and have helped to keep alive the glow and glamour through many centuries, even amidst the greatest gloom and darkness caused by foreign aggression and suppression. The songs, kummi and dance have also made their own contribution in the preservation of that culture.
So we may say that the festivals by themselves constitute an eternal religion for the different societies.
The average Tamilian, as indeed as the average Indian, has a worshipful attitude towards the Supreme Intelligence as Water, fire, air and ether, the Sun and the Moon, and the Individual. (The eight are called in Saivam the Ashta murta or the eight manifest forms of Siva). Hence his attitude of reverence to all things-say, to the sea,, the river, the plant, and the animal. The sensible person does not worship ghosts or goblins, does not worship minor evil devatas; he pays homage no doubt to departed ancestors out of a sense of respect and gratitude. All these “elements are manifest in the various festivals. Rivers are worshipped as sacred waters, the sun is worshipped as the giver of all life and bounty, and plants are worshipped as Sthala Vriksha (sacred trees attached to shrines) and ancestors are given due homage. Many festivals detailed in the following pages will indicate the homage done to these categories. All these call for an expression of piety and devotion in worship, fasting, vigils, offerings of food and flowers, and gifts to men of God and the sharing of food with the labourers and the poor, and a deep fellow feeling with all creation. Festivals by their very nature are sources of great rejoicing for all concerned.
The book is divided into the three parts. The first is a general introduction to the festivals and their celebration in the home and the temple, their classification and their value. The second part deals with all the celebrations month by month beginning from the Tamil month of Chitrai (April 14 to May 14) and ending with the month of Panguni (March to April). The third part deals with some other festivals which had not been dealt with in the second part. An extensive account of the Kumbhakonam Mahamagham festival is given here in the opening pages of this section (page 266) although the subject is just mentioned under the Masi magham festival (page 233-4), because of the great importance and attraction which it has to people all over Tamil Nadu and because it is not a monthly festival occurring once a year but occurring once in twelve years. The next festival occurs on 1—3—1980.
Additional notes are provided in Appendix 1 . There are some further points relating to the respective festivals given in parts 1 and II; they are given here and are to be read along with them in continuation of the relevant matter on the pages indicated. Appendix 2 gives here in original the Tamil sources in the form of Tamil quotations, corresponding to the passages mentioned in the body of the text in the appropriate page* These have been given here partly because it is our belief they -will be enjoyed by the Tamil knowing readers, who may also like to read them in the Tamil language and partly also because I was unable to resist my own joy in recounting them in the book. Appendix 3 is a table of the Tamil months with the corresponding months in the Saka era, the zodiacal reckoning and the English names of the Roman calendar.
A glossary of the Tamil and Sanskrit words occurring in the book is appended.
During the years 1947 to 1970 when I was running the Gandhian National Education Centre in my place Tiruchitrambalam, a remote rural area, it was a matter of religion with us to celebrate all the festivals on the respective days. On an average we were celebrating about fifteen days in a month, which included the anniversary days of Nayanmar Alvar, and other saints, poets and eminent national heroes including the festive days of all the other religions. Our main purpose was to instill in our educators at the elementary and high school levels a pride in the national life and in the national culture. No student passed out of our school without knowing something about the Tamil Nadu festivals, the All-India festivals, the Anniversary days of our great men at the Tamil Nadu and the A Is India levels, and a little about the religions other than the Hindu. The Gandhian National Education had given us the spirit of integration long before the dawn of India’s Independence, and it is that spirit of integration which has enabled me to write down these few accounts of the festivals. These constitute only a small fraction of the celebrations in our schools.
The whole book has been prepared with the background of the Kaveri area and its culture and that too at a particular stratum of society. Occasionally one may notice peeps into 6 Festivals of Tamilnadu Madras also here. This is quite natural because one can not get out of his own early upbringing and the simple joys and pleasures the environment gave him in the early periods.
P.V. Jagadisa Aiyar, Manager of the Archaeology department of the Government of India in Madras, had published a book on the South Indian Festivals in 1924 in about 200 pages of which more than 44 full pages of illustrations being photographic reproductions of temple gopuras, tanks, deities etc. He has given there a large volume of useful information, chiefly dealing with the legends, and with some epigraphic references. He has treated of the festivals beginning with the month of Thai and ending with Marhali. It is quite a useful book, useful because of the extensive legends given therein and the pictures. But it is not exhaustive and it is not generally concerned with the celebration. I have tried to describe the celebration in this book and have tried to make it extensive.
A number of these accounts had appeared in the pages of the Swarajya during the years 1975 and 1976. At the suggestion of some friends I am completing the series and am issuing them in book form in an enlarged version. I am indebted to Dr. R. Nagaswami, Director of the State Archaeology Department for the illustrations in the book which 1 hope will stimulate the reader’s interest and add to the usefulness of the book. The printing of the book has been spread over an unusually large number of months owing to difficulties in the press and this has resulted in the lack of uniformity in the spelling of certain words like Aippasi, Poompavai, Tirup-puhal etc. Again, in carrying out the proof corrections the Press have made fresh mistakes, which do not come for the scrutiny of the proof reader. For these and other similar lapses. I crave the indulgence of the reader.