Festivals are occasions of joy. One does not celebrate sorrow. A festival is a celebration and has come to mean joy, joy all round. So, occasions of festivals unite all people and have been a means of uniting people and of integrating communities from the earliest times. Man does not live in isolation but lives as a member of a society to whose joys and pleasures he contributes and from which he also receives sustenance. So, festivals have a great value for him.
We associate the Sanskrit word for festival utsava with a temple festival. But the Tamil. Word vizha has come to mean any festival, not only temple festival, and religious festival, but any social festival and even a national or literary festival. Vizha derives from the root vizhai which means to desire, and so vizha would mean the fulfilment of desire, and a celebration. When people joined together there was joy and celebration, and these came naturally to be festivals. People came together on some important occasion in the very early times and the memory of that occasion probably came to be remembered and celebrated with great rejoicing annually in later years. Thus came the celebration of festivals. The festivals are of course associated with some kind of origin or cause of celebration, but this need not be pushed further back. We may rest content with saying that out of joy and mutual goodwill were born many of our great festivities.
Festivals had been compared by some to the carnivals of the West. Carnivals are mere fun and sensory enjoyment, materialistic to the core. We should remember that the case in India is different. Our recorded history, culture and civilization go back to more than 2500 years, two and a half millennia, and they hand down to us the culture which is at least five millennia old. There has been a continuity, one generation passing on its great legacy of culture down to the next. We certainly did have foreign cultures & languages, civilizations, and domination. But we did not succumb. There was an in-suppressible vitality in our culture and our sense of values which continued to live and thrive under any type of adverse conditions and this feature has handed down to us an unbroken cultural heritage.
Although festivals are spontaneous expressions of joy and thanksgiving to nature if we may say so, they certainly have a core of bhakti in their celebration. They are a frequent reminder of God and surrender to a higher Power. They have also helped in a great measure to cultivate the mind of man and to evolve a uniform culture and have handed it down to generations of posterity.
The spirit of all festivals is joy, a fellow feeling and a surrender to the higher power also an outcome of the society’s feeling of thanksgiving. Their aim is to remind man of God and induce him to contemplate on God as stipulated in the scriptures. Man is expected to suspend all his normal activities on the day of a festival and learn to concentrate upon something above Him to forget himself and if possible, experience the joy of living as a responsible member of society and to learn the joy of giving to the working class and to the less fortunate^ without expecting anything in return. The festivals are recorded in our Puranas and each of them commemorates a great event like the Kamadahana, the burning of Kama or lust, and so on. These are occasions of joy, although fasts are prescribed as a means of bodily purification. When a festival is celebrated in honour of some deity, it is conceived of as an act of thanksgiving for some good to society that was done by the deity. It is a remembrance of how God suppressed evil in order that Good may prevail and happiness may come to all. Man, by the observance of the fasts and feasts, purifies himself and rises higher.
There are several marginal benefits resulting from any festival. For one thing, in the name of decoration, the whole house becomes clean. Pongal of course insists on a complete overhaul of the house, white washing and painting where necessary, discarding all accumulated and unwanted rubbish. Cobwebs, waste piles, and rubbish dumps one year old are then removed.
This apart, the periodical decoration as for example for Navaratri brings in its train a greater cleaning of the house at least partially, a brightening up and fresh illumination. Ayudha puja necessitates the cleaning up of all tools and instruments giving them an enforced rest for a couple of days dusting the books and the like. The New Year’s Day causes a complete cleanup of the entire house. Apart from the cleaning on festive occasions, every Hindu home has its own traditional way of beautifying the entrance to the house, for welcoming Lakshmi every day. Early morning and in the evening, the yard at the entrance is swept clean water is sprinkled and a kolam, small or big, is drawn there by the lady of the house or by the girl children. This gives a trim appearance to the whole house and lends a fine atmosphere.
What is more valuable than a trim and chic environment to share one-’s life with? This can easily be seen in contrast with any neighboring house which has no sprinkling of water and no kolams. Such a house will present a dismal and neglected sight which will be just the reverse of joy and merriment. Add to this a small lighted kuttuvilakku in the evening at the entrance to every Hindu household and here we have the full measure of the joy, which is obtained from a festival, just by following tradition, even without celebrating any festival. Such are the lasting benefits given to us by the tradition of festivals.
The latter half of the twentieth century witnesses loud declarations of rationalism by many who call themselves thinkers and they claim that they do not like to celebrate ‘meaningless and superstitious festivals in their homes.’ They are only to be pitied. Celebrations are not a mere matter of superstition. They are a matter of infinite joy to the children and the women folk even if the grown-up men who claim to be radicals and atheists are unable to enter into the spirit of the festivals fully. The festivals build a bridge of understanding between the past and the present and also open up a path for the future. They are a social attempt to retain all the best in our past culture and customs and to hand them down to the future generations in an agreeable, enjoyable and elevating manner and they seem to perpetuate the best in them. Then they area bond in society which is calculated to develop good neighborliness and harmony and partially remove the disparities arising out of class and wealth. Through the songs sung at the time of festivals, they also help to introduce language to the children and offer great scope for the development of all art and of creativity and the training of the eyes and ears and the skill of the hands and the fingers in handiwork. There is no ether single element today which can be substituted for this that the festivals accomplish. We can only pity such scoffers and feel sorry for their children who are denied the innocent pleasures and free gains of life through no fault of their own.