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Art. IV.—The Pongol Festival in Southern India
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
Long before I had set foot in India I had been greatly struck by the exceedingly different statements regarding its people which were made by those who knew them best. Some, and notably the missionaries, could find no language strong enough to express the utter abomination of Hindu life and custom. Every chapter of Ward's great work teems with phrases of the strongest reprobation. The ceremonies he describes are indeed vile, and it cannot be said that his condemnation is too strong. On the other hand, civil and military officers, of the highest integrity and the closest observation, have set up the Hindus as models which it would be greatly to the benefit of Europeans to follow. They saw in the Hindu village system, and the ordinary life of the villagers, a living type of patriarchal happiness, uprightness, and wisdom. Major Scott Waring may be taken as a type of such men. The discussions in Parliament upon the clauses of the great India Bill that permitted the appointment of Bishops, and opened India to mission work, are full of illustrations of this contradiction; and I can well remember when, as a boy, I waded through the reports, being struck with wonder that men who had lived side by side in India, who had gained enormous experience and possessed the ability to learn the lessons that experience should teach, could, by any possibility, arrive at conclusions so diverse. After many years spent in close intercourse with the people of India, I do not wonder now. On one occasion both views of the question were brought vividly before me. I had seen the Pongol, the touching domestic festival it is now my chief object to describe.
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page 99 note 1 In Max Müller's elaborate paper on the sixth hymn of the first book of the Rig Veda in the Journal R.A.S. for 1867, page 225, occurs the following translation:—“Thou, O Agni Jâtavedas, hast carried, when implored, the offerings which thou hast rendered sweet. Thou hast given them to the fathers, they fed on their share. Eat thou, O god, the proffered oblations. Our fathers who are here, and those who are not here, our fathers whom we know, and those whom we do not know, thou knowest how many they are, O Jâtavedas, accept the well-made sacrificial portions. They who, whether burnt by fire or not burnt by fire, rejoice in their offering in the midst of heaven, give to them, O king, that life, and thy (their) own body, according to thy will.” The first two sentences clearly point to Agni as the messenger to and from the gods, and therefore to be invoked at the commencement of the sacrifice. The next phrase—“Eat thou, O God, the proffered oblations,” is still the ordinary form in which the offering is made. Can the next very remarkable phrase refer to a family gathering, when “our fathers who are here, and those who are not here,” that is, the present heads of the family and those who are dead, are called to the festival, so that it may represent to the gods the generations who have been blessed ? The last sentence, “whether burnt by the fire, or not burnt by the fire,” is equally striking. Can this refer to such a bonfire as I have described, and to the leaping over it, which is the constant accompaniment of the ceremonial ? “Rejoicing in their offering in the midst of heaven—whether burnt or not,” is a very curious phrase, and would seem, on the face of it, to point to some popular ceremony, in which fire was an essential point.
page 103 note 1 Not only is it necessary to eat the new rice now, but the recent crop may not be tasted till now, however poor or stinted the owner may be. The first fruits must go to God, and the bulk of the crop may not be used till the claims of the deity have been duly satisfied. In this point the feast shows the closest likeness to the Jewish celebration—Leviticus, chapter xxiii., verses 10–14, “When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest unto the priest … And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God.”
page 117 note 1 Sonnerat, M., who, in his “Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine” (Paris, 1782), gives a brief account of the Pongol (vol. i. p. 240),Google Scholar mentions another ceremony in connexion, it would seem, with the one here described. He says—“Le soir on porte la figure du Dieu, processionnellement dans les campagnes. L'idole eat placée sur un cheval de bois, dont les pieds de devant sons levés comme s'il galopoit, ceux de derrière sont posés sur une table de bois, portée par quatre hommes. Ils observent dans la marche d'aller en travers comme un cheval qui se câbre et qui rue; l'idole tient une lance à la main, et elle est censée aller à la chasse; on tue un animal réservé pour cette fête; il doit être quadrupède, choisi indifféremment depuis le tigre jusqu'au rat. On examine surtout le côté qu'il prend, quand on le lâche, pour en tirer des augures. Ce même jour les Brames jettent des sorts pour connoître les événemens de l'année suivante. Les animaux et les grains sur lesquels ils tombent, deviendront, disentils, très-rares; si c'est sur les bœufs et le Nély (riz en paille), les bœufs périront et le nély sera très-cher; s'ils tombent sur les chevaux et lea éléphans, c'est signe de guerre.” I have made every inquiry regarding the practice described by Sonnerat, but can find no evidence that it is observed now.