When egocentric man worships one, or more, perhaps all, of the 33,00,00,000 gods and goddesses on this side of and beyond the Milky Way, he is in a terribly tiring process and liable to forget the most important element of the whole creation-Himself, the Alpha and Omega of his own world.
For centuries, if not millenniums, Vedantis have been dinning into the ears of the spiritually-inclined: “Tat Tuam Asi”, You are That (meaning you are all that exists).
Yet man, his own star, and the “roof and crown of things”, has failed to worship Himself, the world over.
Except among the Newars of Kathmandu.
They have set apart a day in the year for Mha Puja (Self-worship) during Diwali, which, incidentally, marks the Newar New year, also known as Nepal Sambat. On that day the Newar does full justice to himself, his personal cravings and desires, both in respect of feeding his body and purifying the spirit, with none other than Himself as the deity, the benefactor as well as the beneficiary.
Not to be outdone, however, the Nepalese male in general would also have himself made the object of worship and veneration at the hands of his sisters, elder or younger, the very day. Known as the Nepalese world over as Bhai Tika, or the Brother’s Day, the Nepalese girls on this day virtually vie against one another in the business of ceremonially adoring their brothers. Not entirely out of an altruistic motive, however, for immediately as they complete offering puja to their brothers, the latter, rather in an expansive mood after having been thus propitiated, shower cash and gifts on their fair devotees.
Not only this. The Nepalese have set apart one day each in their ceremonial calendar for the ritualistic expression or gratitude to their mothers, their fathers, their preceptors, their husbands, and even to such humble animals and birds like the crow, the bull, the dog and the crow.
The Mata Tirtha Aunsi, for example, is their ceremonial Mother’s Day. Celebrated on the moonless fifteenth day in April, the Nepalese sons and daughters, if living separately, make a bee-line for their parental abodes with gifts in the shape of delicacies and presents in cash and kind, in a bid to repay the debt of gratitude they owe their mothers.
Those who do not have their mothers any more make ritual offerings to Brahmin priests in the fond hope that whatever is given to the Brahmans will ultimately reach the departed souls in other world. Others visit a pond near Kathmandu, named after this day as the Mata Tirtha Pond to participate in the ceremonial annual bath in the name of their mothers.
How this particular pond attained celebrity as an abode of all lost mothers has an interesting legend behind it. A shepherd, it is said, one day, sat by its edge and was about to have his midday meal, when, to his amazement, he noticed reflected in the placid waters of the pond a clear profile of his mother, who had been dead for years.
Evidently the poor thing was hungry, thought the shepherd, otherwise why shadow him like that at lunch time? In a reverential pity, he left his food there untouched and went his way. When, back from work, he passed the pond again, the food had disappeared, and so too the reflected image.
As the news spread, the otherwise peaceful pond came to be regarded as the repository of the spirits of all departed mothers in the community.
Well, may this institution be reminiscent to a matriarchal antiquity of the Nepalese people, or at least of some indigenous communities, as some hold, but how does this explain the prevalence of a parallel Fathers’ Day celebrated by Kathmanduites with equal gusto on another moonless night in August known as the Gokarna Aunsi?
On this day, all Kathmandu roads lead to the Gokarna forest, beside which flows the holy Bagmati. There, in a shrine, sons make oblations and offerings in the name of their departed fathers. Those that have their fathers living repeat rituals reminiscent of the Mothers’ Day, but this time at the houses of their fathers, for whose benefit the rituals are organized.
The teachers and preceptors, in the traditional sense of these terms, have their annual day too, or rather two days. The Jhankris and Dhamis, the Nepalese Shamans, celebrate the full moon day in July (otherwise known as Rakhsha Bandhan) as their Gurus’ (Teachers’) Day, and dance demented to the tune of jingling bells and raucous cymbals night-long, either in some improvised shrine at home or in a temple nearby.
For the rest of the preceptor-worshippers, there is another day known as the Rishi Tarpani, or literally, the day of oblations to rishis, the sages and preceptors of old.
Nepalese married women, especially those among the hill tribes, also observe and annual Husbands’ Day known as Teej, in August, while, for the unmarried ones, this day of fasting in honour of Lord Shiva is believed to land a husband in their laps in the course of the year!
During the five-day affair that is known as Panchak of Teehar (Divali), the innately humane outlook of the Himalayan people towards their domesticated pets as also other animals and birds, finds a formal and ritual expression, in order of priority, thus: first the Crow’s Day; second, the Dog’s Day; third, the Cow’s Day; fourth, Bull’s Day; and fifth, the Day of the Cowdung!
The worship of the crow, one would imagine, is in return for the unique and virtually irredeemable debt of gratitude that the Nepalese owe these feathered tribes for their incessant and voluntary service to humanity as universal scavengers and also as healers. The dog is, in its turn, the perennial sentinel of every threshold, while the Bull is the right arm of the farmer in a predominantly agricultural Nepal. The cow, of course, is the universal mother, a feeder of milk, and the cow-dung is both manure for the farmer’s land and a fuel for the household.
Of all things, even the pariahs that all along remain an irksome and lice-infested eyesore to the community emerge overnight as rare objects of reverence during the Panchak. Their pub-faces tidied up by human “devotees”, their foreheads plastered with Tika paste and colorful marigold garlands dangling down their necks, the dogs, as they are lovingly fed with sumptuous dishes of meat and rice by their fellow humans, present a touching sight indeed.
(Collected by late Nagendra Shrama)