Celebrating Women’s Festival Haretalika Teej In Nepal

Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

On the third day of the bright fortnight in Bhadra (Aug-Sept) in the Nepalese calendar, Hindu women in Nepal celebrate Haretalika Teej for long lives of much-loved husbands and for the happy and harmonious matrimonial life. For the married women, celebrating the women-only festival is the great opportunity of showing their love and dedication to husbands. So, they have made it mandatory to all married women. They leave it optional to unmarried women, teenagers and girls. However, unmarried women also celebrate this unique festival believing wishing-fulfilling Supreme Hindu God Shiva will meet their wish for having the husbands of their choice. On this day, they do not do anything except for singing, dancing, fasting and going to the shrines to Lord Shiva elsewhere in Nepal. A tradition has it that women vent their anger on mothers-in-law through the songs they sing on this day.

For Hindu women, a life without a husband is meaningless. So, they rank their husbands equal to Lord Vishnu. Their social status becomes non-existence when they lose husbands. So, they chose their husbands very carefully at the time of marriage, as the marriage pact is a life-long one. Once, they are married they do everything possible for the long lives of their husbands. Teej is one of such religious festivals they celebrate to make their husbands long living.

Nevah Hindu women don’t celebrate Teej, as they have been already married to Lord Vishnu in the religious marriage called ‘Ihi’ performed at the early age of seven or nine. So, they don’t need to worry about the matrimonial lives or bonds.

Married women usually go to their parents to celebrate Teej. Those staying at home do not do household chores on this day. They walk miles and miles to reach their parents, as Nepal is a hilly country, roads and public transport are not widely available in the hill and mountain areas even at the beginning of the 21st century.

Male members of the family mostly fathers and brothers cook festive foods such as castrated-goat meat, vegetables, sweets and so on in the hills and mountains where they have to do everything for women on this day. Certainly, women living in urban areas are lucky as they could buy everything of their choice for food, drink and so on. They boost the market during the Teej shopping for a week.

As they need to fast even not drinking water the whole day on the day of Teej for pleasing Lord Shiva they eat as much as possible on the eve of this festival. They call it ‘dar-khane.’ They sit for eating in the evening and continue eating until the first crow of a rooster or the daybreak. In between eating, they entertain playing cards, singing, dancing and doing other means of entertainment. For us the end of the night is when we see the marks of bricks on the pavement in the morning natural light. So, our women have quite long night for them to eat and entertain.

Recently in Kathmandu and other major towns such as Pokhara and Dharan, women have started a new tradition of celebrating Teej a week earlier than used to be. Instead of one-day celebration of ‘dar-khane’ they have started doing it a week before Teej. They celebrate ‘dar-khane’ at one friend or relative or another in turn for a week. Thus, Teej celebration has been a weeklong celebration.

Our forefathers have set the tradition of sending ‘dar-bhag’ to mothers-in-law of their daughters on the eve of Teej. Daughters-in-law usually leave home for their parents for celebrating Teej. We send ‘dar-bhag’ to mothers-in-law to avoid inconvenience that might be caused by the absence of daughters-in-law. For whatever reasons, we follow this tradition set by our ancestors.

‘Dar-bhag’ comprises foodstuff such as cooked meat and vegetables, sweets and fruits for a feast, one set of wearing such as a blouse, a petticoat, a sari and a sandal, one set of jewelry such as a ‘pote’ (necklace of glass beads), golden ‘tilhari’ (something like a pendant that hangs from ‘pote’), and teeka (round red item made of cloth, size about 1/10 of an inch), puja (offering) items such as 360 grains of rice husked manually and of ‘dati-van’ made of ‘dati-van plant cut into 2-3 inches long for brushing teeth, cotton wicks, barely grains, sesame seeds and flowers.

Recently, rich Nepalis have started sending beer, whisky, wine, and crates of soft drinks with the KFC chicken and so on to the mothers-in-law. Boozing has been common even though traditionally booze is forbidden. Drunken men give the company to the women in dancing and singing at the night. Instead of traditional Teej songs they play music for western dances.

After the whole night merrymaking and eating, early in the morning of the Teej festival, women go to the nearest water sources such as water well, waterspout, stream or river, and there they take a dip in water. Some of them lucky ones living in urban areas having a modern bathroom facility take shower. Then, they put on the best dress available usually of the crimson color: the color of luck for Hindu women, and then wear wedding jewelry almost looking like brides.

Women in a group of friends, relatives and neighbors visit the nearest shrine to Lord Shiva. On the way to the shrine, they dance and sing. Some of them express the grievances they face, and the unkindness of their mothers-in-law in songs. This gives them some mental relief.

As elsewhere in Nepal, in Kathmandu, too, you see thousands of women lining up in several lines on the sun or under the rain at the entrance to the shrine to Lord Shiva at Bagmati, Sankhamul and Kalmochahan. All of them dressed in crimson color give a unique scene when they line up for entering the inner sanctum of the lord’s shrine. They believe that by doing so Lord Shiva will be pleased with them and will meet their wishes.

After visiting the shrine to Lord Shiva, on the way back home, some of the women dance and sing believing that they will accumulate merits, and even become angels in their next incarnations. Some of them are so strong they continue to dance for a long time; however, some others are so weak they faint in the hot sun even while lining up for visiting Lord Shiva.

After the wonderful day of fasting, dancing, singing and worshipping, women return home. They take purification wash again; this is third such wash they take after the early morning wash and the wash before worshipping Lord Shiva on the Teej day. They continue fasting. Some of them keep awake the whole night chanting religious hymns; others simply take rest and sleep with empty stomachs.

Next day, early in the morning, again women take a wash and worship Lord Shiva. They take food item, fruits and flowers as offerings to Lord Shiva and get these items blessed from the lord. They call these items ‘prasad’ or blessed items and offer such items to their husbands. Thereafter, they break the fast and take rest for the remaining day.

Nepalis believe that the fourth day of the bright fortnight night in Bhadra is the birthday of Lord Ganesh. So, we make special offerings to Lord Ganesh on this day. Lord Ganesh is the son of Lord Shiva and Parvati. Some Nepalis believe that it is not auspicious to take a look at the moon on this night. So, they hide from moon.

On the fifth day, women go to Teku to take a holy dip in the water of the confluence of two holy rivers called Bagmati and Vishnumati in Kathmandu.

On the fifth day of bright fortnight in Bhadra, the women’s only religious festival is held at Teku in Kathmandu. On this day, the area becomes off-limit to the male creatures for keeping the privacy of women. Women take a dip in the holy water of the confluence of two rivers called Bagmati and Vishnumati, brush the teeth 365 times, and then take purification dips in water 365 times and so on. Women do all these things on this day to atone for any wrong they have unknowingly done in the year. After performing all purifying rituals, women perform worship for Lord Shiva called Rikhaysvore there; thereafter, they perform worship for seven ‘Rishis”. So, this fifth day of the light fortnight in Bhadra is also called Rishi Panchami means fifth day of ‘Rishis’. After the worship for Rikhaysvore and seven ‘Rishis’, some women make a pilgrimage to Goddess of Love Bijesvori to the north west of Teku on the right bank of Vishnumati River in Kathmandu.

Women living in other parts of Nepal, visit the nearest confluence of rivers, if they do not have such a confluence, they go to the nearest river, if they do not have even a river, they go to the nearest water source and take a purification dip, and then perform worship for Lord Rikhaysvore and seven ‘Rishis.”

About the origin of Teej, a legend has it that a king called Himalaya has a daughter called Parvati. A devotee of Lord Vishnu called Narad makes a chance visit to the parents of Parvati and sees the beautiful young lady coming of age and thinks that such a lady must be actually born for Lord Vishnu. Narad sounds whether her parents are willing to marry their daughter to Lord Vishnu. In view of the Lord Vishnu’s status in the Hindu world, the parents don’t take long time to accept the proposal of Narad for marrying Parvati to Lord Vishnu. However, Parvati has already dedicated her mind and body to Lord Shiva. So, she becomes very upset, as her parents have agreed on wedding her to Lord Vishnu without her consent.

In her previous incarnation, Parvati was a Sati-devi: the youngest and most beautiful daughter of Dacche-prajapati. Lord Vishnu tricked Dacche-prajapati to marry Sati-devi to Lord Shiva as mentioned in the story called Svosthani. Dacche-prajapati insulted not only Lord Vishnu but also Lord Shiva for tricking him to marry the most loved one to someone he hates. Not being able to tolerate the insults hurled by her father at her husband Lord Shiva, Sati-devi took her life jumping into the fire made for worship. Thereafter, she incarnated as Parvati.

Her friends become extremely sorry for seeing her in such a bad mood but cannot do much for remedying it, as Parvati refuses to open her mind to the friends. After some time, one of her friends persuades Parvati into sharing her reasons for being so upset with the friends.

Then, her friends takes Parvati to a solitary place and let her meditate on Lord Shiva with the wish for having him as her spouse. Parvati meditates days and nights fasting, praying and worshipping Lord Shiva.

Ultimately, pleased with devotion and dedication of Parvati, Lord Shiva appears in front of her and tells her that He will meet anything she has on her mind. Parvati takes the advantage of Lord Shiva’s benevolence, and asks the lord for marrying her. Thus, Parvati achieves her goal on the third day of the bright fortnight in the month called Bhadra (Aug-Sept) in the Nepalese calendar. So, women celebrate Teej festival on this day. They believe that the tradition has been set since then. In Nepal we call this festival Haretalika Teej, as friends of Parvati literally kidnap her and make her meditate on having Lord Shiva a spouse. Haretalika is probably derived from the word ‘heret’ means kidnapping.

This year’s Teej is on September 11, 2010.