Holi Festival: Welcoming spring with Colors

By Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

Nepalese Hindus and Buddhists as well celebrate the spring festival called Fagu or holi for eight days beginning on the eighth day of the bright fortnight and ending on the full moon day in Falgun (Feb-March) in the Vikram calendar. People do not perform religious offerings, animal sacrifices or fasting on this occasion rather they celebrate this festival hurling colors at each other, singing amorous songs expressing advent of the spring season. This is the time when boys throw colored powder and balloons filled with water at girls. In the course of time, Nepalese began relating this festival of merrymaking to Hindu myths and a Buddhist myth to explain the origin of this festival. The social significance and performance of this festival reached a peak during the Malla kings’ period, as they gave a royal importance to this festival.

This festival begins with the ceremonial installation of “chir” by the state at Basantapur in Kathmandu, and common people’s “chir” at every village in Terai, and with the planting of about three feet high dry plant with multi-color strips of linen hanging from its branches at every ancient palace courtyard called ‘layaku’. About 20-feet long pole with three circular frames placed each smaller one above another on its top, and about a foot-long and inch-width multi-colored linens hanging from around those frames looked like an umbrella is called “Chir.”

This dry bush plant symbolizes the holy tree called Kadam on which Lord Krishna hung the clothes of a group of milkmaids who were bathing in the Jamuna River. This is also called “chir”. The chir stands up until the full moon day. On the night of this full moon day, the ceremonial chir is lowered and the bush plant is uprooted, and taken to the Tundikhel area for burning them to ashes. Some people save the linen strips for a future use believing that an aching part of a body gets relief if they tie the body part with it.

Nepalese people have been celebrating the fagu or holi festival entirely for fun on the advent of the spring season since time immemorial. Later on, religiously inclined people must have begun attaching one myth or another to this festival suitable to their custom and culture to embellish this festival further. However, people celebrate this festival mainly playing with colors, singing fagu songs, and dancing merrily. In Terai, people beat the drums and sing amorous songs every night throught the eight-day festival. They cook sweets adding “bhang” (marijuana) to it in order to get tipsy and have fun.

This festival got the highest recognization during the time of Malla kings who attached a great importance to it. The royalties themselves took part in playing colors with the high-ranking officials. At that time, it was mandatory for all state employees to dress in clean white, and go to the palace, and receive vermillion from the sovereign and other courtiers. Common people went to their seniors and elders to receive vermilion from them as blessings on the fagu festival. Unfortunately, this tradition has faded away today.

Hindus relate this festival to a number of myths. The closest myth is about Holika, the sister of the atheist king called Hiranya Kasyapu who made several attempts on the life of his son called Prahald without any success to finish him off. Prahald was a devotee of Lord Vishnu. His father Kasyapu did not recognize anybody as a god, as he believed nobody deserved more veneration than him. So, he wanted everybody worship him rather than anybody else. However, his son Prahald refused to recognize him even as an equal to Lord Vishnu. Kasyapu made a number of efforts to change his mind but without success; so, Kasyapu wanted to destroy his son rather than watching him as a devotee of Lord Vishnu. He also made a number of attempts on the life of his son but every time there was an attempt on his life, Lord Vishnu manage to save him.

Ultimately, Kasyapu requested his sister Holika to jump into a bonfire holding Prahald in her bosom believing that fire would not harm her as she had received a boon of not harming her from the Fire god. Unfortunately for Holika, the fire consumed her but not hurting Prahald by the grace of Lord Vishnu. Soon after that, people celebrated the victory of good over evil, and welcomed Prahald home hurling colors at each other. The anniversary of this event became the Holi festival the name derived from Holika. People make a bonfire at every village in Terai for commemorating the burning of Holika.

Another Hindu myth is about Lord Krishna, a human incarnation of Lord Vishnu who came to the earth to discipline the people at that time. Seeing a group of milkmaids bathing nude, Lord Krishna sneaked into the area, collected their clothes left on the bank of the river, and then hung them on the branches of the Kadam tree. Milkmaids horrified at the absence of their clothes, looked around and noticed Lord Krishna on the Kadam tree quietly playing a flute, and their clothes fluttering in the wind to their dismay. They pleaded Lord Krishna to return their clothes. Eventually, Lord Krishna returned their clothes on condition that they would never again bathe in nude. Milkmaids laughing at Lord Krishna smeared him with vermilion in revenge for what he did to them. It is believed that ever since people have been playing with colors once a year. Thus, the holi festival was instituted. This myth corresponds with the tradition of installing a “chir”.

Nepalese Buddhists also celebrate the fagu festival. They relate this festival to a merchant who went to Lhasa with a group of compatriots to do business. There, they made a fortune, but, when the merchant called Singh-Sartha-Bahu wanted to go back home, he found that his colleagues were in love with the local women who possessed magic power, and kept the men strictly under their control.

The merchant then prayed to Lord Karunamaya: one of the incantations of Lord Avalokiteswore for help.  On one night the lord appeared in his dream and explained to him how they coud be free from the grip of these women, and return back to their home country.

As suggested by the lord, the merchant and his friends left Lhasa at mid-night, and traveled back home without looking back throughout the journey. Their friend and relatives welcomed them jubilantly hurling vermillion in air to express joy on their return. This celebraion was repeated every year to commemorate their safe return from Lhasa, setting the tradition of playing with colors or the fagu festival in the course of time. 

Later on, people deified the merchant, and worshiped him as Chakandeo.  Once a year, on the occasion of the fagu festival, people in Thamel, Kathmandu, take Chakandeo out on the full moon day to demonstrate his successful return from a business trip.

The holi or fagu festival is a non-religious and non-sectarian festival, and is observed by almost all Nepalese people for a bit of fun and frolic after a long spell of dreary winter season. Although it is linked to various myths, this festival mainly welcomes the spring season in high spirit.

During the last millennium, it has undergone a sea change from a respectable color game to a present-day nuisance of throwing colors at pedestrians and strangers indiscriminately without any warning. It is fun for some people but misery for others.