HINDU-RELIGIOUS
FESTIVALS
Tamil Nadu has perhaps the largest number of religious
observances in the year. Most of the temple-festivals take place in September-October
and in the post-harvest months of March-June. The duration
of each festivals is from three to ten days more. The
main deity is dressed in colourful resplendent costumes and adorned
with very valuable and rare items of jewellery of the distant
past. The deity is mounted on specially constructed carriers
called 'Vahanams' and taken round the temple in processions.
Madurai, Srirangam and some other towns have been planned for this
purpose, each street being named after the temple festival, the route of which
passes through it. The idea of taking out the portable deity in such procession
is to enable the sick, the old, the disabled and the members of the communities
forbidden to enter temples to get a direct view of the deity and to
offer prayer.
Caparisoned elephants, gaily bedecked lead this
processions to the delight of children. Ornamental silk umbrellas
are used to protect the deity from the sun's scorching heat. On the main
days of the festival, at night when the deity is carried through
important streets every house hold receives the deity with lighted
lamps, coconuts, fruits, and flowers are offered to the deity and prayer is
made in the form of archana (glorification of the lord). Through out the
festival period, religious discourses devotional song-recitals by Thevaram and Prabandam singers in groups,
music
concerts and performance of folk-arts go on right through the
night and devotees make it a point to attend these until
the deity returns to the temple in the small hours of the morning.
To invoke the blessing of the god,
the common folk arrange
street dramas, often on the Harischandra, the enacting of the scene where
Harischandra appears along with his wife and dead child, in the crematorium is
believed to bring in rains.
Festival gatherings are made use of to take a look at
prospective brides and grooms to arrange matrimonial alliances.
These serve to strengthen the earlier alliances, invitations being
extended to such kith and kin for feasts.
Folks believe that there will be
rain or at least inclement
weather on important festival days. For fear of ill-luck at the individual or at
the village level. Folks try to be clean as possible. Woman having their
menstrual period are prevented from participating in the festival. They
are considered to be in a state of pollution.
As a part of the festivals,
prescribed songs are sung in the
prominent temples. The Kapaliswarar and Parthasarathi temples in Madras,
the Ekambreswarar temple in Kancheepuram and the Nellyappar temple in
Tirunelveli, have certain traditions regarding such singing.
In
Chittoor, a village 40 km from Coimbatore the incidents
connected with invasion of the ruler of Kongu on the Chera country are
repeated in the festivals for the local deity Chittoor amman. Scenes of
warfare are depicted and school children sing songs from a musical called
Konkappadai.
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