Holi
Holi is a major Hindu festival celebrated as the Festival of Colours, Love and Spring.
It celebrates the eternal and divine love of the deities Radha and Krishna.
Additionally, the day signifies the triumph of good over evil, as it commemorates the victory of Vishnu as Narasimha over Hiranyakashipu.
Holi originated and is predominantly celebrated in the Indian subcontinent, but has also spread to other regions of Asia and parts of the Western world through the Indian diaspora.
Holi also celebrates the arrival of spring in India, the end of winter, and the blossoming of love. It is also an invocation for a good spring harvest season. It lasts for a night and a day, starting on the evening of the Purnima falling on the Hindu calendar month of Phalguna, which falls around the middle of March in the Gregorian calendar.
Names
Holi is also known as Dol Jatra and Bôshonto Utshôb in Bengal, Phakua and Dôl Jātrā in Assam, Phāgu Pūrṇimā in the hilly region of Nepal, Dola jātra in Odisha, Fagua or Phagua in eastern Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar, and northwestern Jharkhand, Phagwah or Phagwa in the Caribbean, and Phagua in Fiji.The main day of the celebration is known as "Holi", "Rangwali Holi", "Dola Purnima", "Dhuleti", "Dhulandi", "Ukuli", "Manjal Kuli", "Yaosang", "Shigmo", "Phagwah", or "Jajiri".
Description
Holi is a sacred ancient tradition of Hindus, a holiday in many states of India with regional holidays in other countries. It is a cultural celebration that gives Hindus and non-Hindus alike an opportunity to have fun and play with other people by throwing coloured water and powder at each other. It is also observed broadly on the Indian subcontinent. Holi is celebrated at the end of winter, on the last full moon day of the Hindu luni-solar calendar month, marking the spring, making the date vary with the lunar cycle. The date falls typically in March, but sometimes in late February of the Gregorian calendar.The festival has many purposes; most prominently, it celebrates the beginning of spring. In 17th century literature, it was identified as a festival that celebrated agriculture, commemorated good spring harvests, and the fertile land. Hindus believe it is a time to enjoying spring's abundant colours and say farewell to winter. To many Hindus, Holi festivities mark an occasion to reset and renew ruptured relationships, end conflicts, and rid themselves of accumulated emotional impurities from the past.
It also has a religious purpose, symbolically signified by the legend of Holika. The night before Holi, bonfires are lit in a ceremony known as Holika Dahan, or Little Holi. People gather near the fires, sing, and dance. The next day, Holi, also known as Dhuli in Sanskrit, or Dhulheti, Dhulandi, or Dhulendi, is celebrated.
In the northern parts of India, children spray coloured powder solutions at each other, laugh, and celebrate, while adults smear dry coloured powder on each other's faces. Visitors to homes are first teased with colours, then served with Holi delicacies, desserts, and drinks. After playing with colours and cleaning up, people bathe, put on clean clothes, and visit friends and family.
Like Holika Dahan, Kama Dahanam is celebrated in some parts of India. The festival of colours in these parts is called Rangapanchami, and occurs on the fifth day after Poornima.
History
The Holi festival is an ancient Hindu festival with its own cultural rituals, which emerged before the Gupta period. The festival of colours finds mentioned in numerous scriptures, such as in works like Jaimini's Purva Mimamsa Sutras and Kathaka-Grhya-Sutras, with even more detailed descriptions in ancient texts like the Narada Purana and Bhavishya Purana. The festival of "holikotsav" was also mentioned in the 7th-century work, Ratnavali, by King Harsha. It is mentioned in the Puranas, Dasakumara Charita by Daṇḍin, and by the poet Kālidāsa during the 4th-century reign of Chandragupta II.The celebration of Holi is also mentioned in the 7th-century Sanskrit drama Ratnavali. The festival of Holi caught the fascination of European traders and British colonial staff by the 17th century. Various old editions of the Oxford English Dictionary mention it, but with varying, phonetically derived spellings: Houly, Hooly, Huli, Hohlee, Hoolee, and Holi in editions published after 1910.
Legends
Radha Krishna
In the Braj region of India, where the Hindu deities Radha and Krishna grew up, the festival is celebrated until Rang Panchmi in commemoration of their divine love for each other. The festivities officially usher in spring, with Holi celebrated as a festival of love. Garga Samhita, a puranic work by Sage Garga was the first work of literature to mention the romantic description of Radha and Krishna playing Holi.There is also a symbolic legend behind the festival. In his youth, Krishna despairs whether the fair-skinned Radha will like him because of his dark skin colour. His mother Yashoda, tires of his desperation and asks him to approach Radha and ask her to colour his face in any colour she wishes. This Radha does, and Radha and Krishna become a couple. Ever since, the playful colouring of Radha and Krishna's faces has been commemorated as Holi.
Beyond India, these legends help to explain the significance of Holi, which is common in some Caribbean communities of Indian origin such as Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica. It is also celebrated with great fervour in Mauritius, Fiji, and South Africa.
Vishnu
There is a symbolic legend found in the 7th chapter of the Bhagavata Purana explaining why Holi is celebrated as a festival of triumph of good over evil in the honour of Hindu god Vishnu and his devotee Prahlada. King Hiranyakashipu, the father of Prahlada, was the king of demonic Asuras and had earned a boon that gave him five special powers: he could be killed by neither a human being nor an animal, neither indoors nor outdoors, neither at day nor at night, neither by astra nor by any shastra, and neither on land nor in water or air. Hiranyakashipu grew arrogant, thought he was God, and demanded that everyone worship only him.Hiranyakashipu's own son, Prahlada, however, remained devoted to Vishnu. This infuriated Hiranyakashipu. He subjected Prahlada to cruel punishments, none of which affected the boy or his resolve to do what he thought was right. Finally, Holika, Prahlada's evil aunt, tricked him into sitting on a pyre with her. Holika was wearing a cloak that made her immune to injury from fire, while Prahlada was not. As the fire spread, the cloak flew from Holika and encased Prahlada, who survived while Holika burned. Vishnu, the god who appears as an avatar to restore Dharma in Hindu beliefs, took the form of Narasimha – half human and half lion, at dusk, took Hiranyakashyapu at a doorstep, placed him on his lap, and then eviscerated and killed the king with his lion claws.
The Holika bonfire and Holi signifies the celebration of the symbolic victory of good over evil, of Prahlada over Hiranyakashipu, and of the fire that burned Holika.
Kama and Rati
Among other Hindu traditions such as Shaivism and Shaktism, the legendary significance of Holi is linked to Shiva in yoga and deep meditation. Goddess Parvati wanting to bring Shiva back into the world, seeks help from the Hindu god of love called Kamadeva on Vasant Panchami. The love god shoots arrows at Shiva, the yogi opens his third eye and burns Kama to ashes. This upsets both Kama's wife Rati and his own wife Parvati. Rati performs her own meditative asceticism for forty days, upon which Shiva understands, forgives out of compassion and restores the god of love. This return of the god of love, is celebrated on the 40th day after the Vasant Panchami festival as Holi. The Kama legend and its significance to Holi has many variant forms, particularly in South India.Cultural significance
The Holi festival has a cultural significance among various Hindu traditions of the Indian subcontinent. It is the festive day to end and rid oneself of past errors, to end conflicts by meeting others, a day to forget and forgive. People pay or forgive debts, as well as deal anew with those in their lives. Holi also marks the start of spring, an occasion for people to enjoy the changing seasons and make new friends.Holi is of particular significance in the Braj region, which includes locations traditionally associated with Radha Krishna: Mathura, Vrindavan, Nandgaon, Barsana, and Gokula. These places are popular tourist attractions during Holi.
Outside India, Holi is observed by Hindus in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan as well as in countries with large diaspora populations from India around the world. The Holi rituals and customs can vary with local adaptations.
Other Indian religions
The festival has traditionally been also observed by non-Hindus, such as by Sikhs, Jains and Newars.In Mughal India, Holi was celebrated with such exuberance that people of all castes could throw colour on the Emperor. According to Sharma, "there are several paintings of Mughal emperors celebrating Holi". Grand celebrations of Holi were held at the Lal Qila, where the festival was also known as Eid-e-gulaabi or Aab-e-Pashi. Mehfils were held throughout the walled city of Delhi with aristocrats and traders alike participating. This changed during the rule of Emperor Aurangzeb. He banned the public celebration of Holi using a Farman issue in November 1665. However, the celebration were later restarted after the death of Emperor Aurangzeb. Bahadur Shah Zafar himself wrote a song for the festival, while poets such as Amir Khusrau, Ibrahim Raskhan, Nazeer Akbarabadi and Mehjoor Lakhnavi relished it in their writings.
Sikhs have traditionally celebrated the festival, at least through the 19th century, with its historic texts referring to it as Hola. Guru Gobind Singh – the last human guru of the Sikhs – modified Holi with a three-day Hola Mohalla extension festival of martial arts. The extension started the day after the Holi festival in Anandpur Sahib, where Sikh soldiers would train in mock battles, compete in horsemanship, athletics, archery and military exercises.
Holi was observed by Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his Sikh Empire that extended across what are now northern parts of India and Pakistan. According to a report by Tribune India, Sikh court records state that 300 mounds of colours were used in 1837 by Ranjit Singh and his officials in Lahore. Ranjit Singh would celebrate Holi with others in the Bilawal gardens, where decorative tents were set up. In 1837, Sir Henry Fane who was the commander-in-chief of the British Indian army joined the Holi celebrations organised by Ranjit Singh. A mural in the Lahore Fort was sponsored by Ranjit Singh and it showed the Hindu god Krishna playing Holi with gopis. After the death of Ranjit Singh, his Sikh sons and others continued to play Holi every year with colours and lavish festivities. The colonial British officials joined these celebrations.