Pongal/Sankranti/Bhogi/Lohri

[S.Kalyanaraman]

Mani Varadarajan wrote:
>My surmise is that the Tamil culture
> provided a fertile ground for the simultaneous growth
> of Jain, Buddhist, and Vaishnava bhakti, followed
> shortly thereafter by Saiva bhakti.

Let us look at a day earlier. Bhogi is celebrated in Tamilnadu, Bhogi
man.t.alu in Telugu desam, Lohr.i_ or lohi_ in Punjab, Bhogali bihu in
Assam... There is a Punjabi proverb: je min.h na pawe lohr.i_ har.i howegi
thor.i_ = if it does not rain at Lohr.i_, the spring harvest will be poor. In
the Marathi lexicon (Olesworth and Candy), bhogi_ is used for the day before
both the summer and winter solstices; also applied to the day before naraka
caturdas'i_; bhogavid.a_ = a role of betel-leaf with light articles of spicery
enclosed in it, presented by a female on the day of the winter solstice to a
bra_hman or to an unwidowed woman. Winter solstice is also the day of the
maha_vrata in Aitareya A_ran.yaka and perhaps, also the precursor of the
celebration of Christmas... Tamil lexicon explains po_ki as S'iva or Indra and
hence po_ki-pan.t.ikai...

Is it not possible that the harvest festival coinciding with the apparent
shift of the sun's course was practised as a vrata and preceded the bhakti
movements of the historical periods?

Regards, Kalyanaraman



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