Sankranti/Pongal - The Sun Worship in India!!

Hello my loves.. Good morning one and all. I really want to keep this post short because I'm contemplating on what points to include or what not.. seriously, today is the Day 1 of another massive festival of India called "Sankranti" (Telugu language) or "Pongal" (Tamil language) or "Lohri" (Hindi or north Indian regions). I'm not sure about North India but here in South, it is a festival of 4 days and it is as equivalent and important as Diwali. I will write small notes on first day to fourth day, what we do and why we do it...

So, the festival is for 4 days as I mentioned earlier, each day has it's own name..

Day 1: Bhogi

Day 2: Sankranti or Pongal

Day 3: Maattu Pongal

Day 3: Kanum pongal

Day 1 - Bhogi:

Bhogi represents leaving evil things, negativity behind and adopting positivity.. And as a metaphor to their belief, people wake up after the middle of the night, collect all the old broken items in their house like old torn carpets, old useless books, old wood furniture and burn them in front of their house just like I showed in the picture above.. It is strongly believed that it will ward away negativity in the house and bring purity around.. My childhood memory is that we used to be around 10 kids, wake up by 2 am and burn a lot of items in front of our house and every house in our street used to have a competition of whose fire is larger than others lol. Omg those days and memories.. The next day, we clean the streets and our houses.

Bhogi also emphasis the growing cold around the city and burning all around make the city warm and keep everyone warm around :)

Day 2 - Sankranti/Pongal:

This is the main festival day.. so important that the whole festival is named after this day. Today is completely dedicated to Sun God.. for those People who does not understand why I included God at the end of Sun, you need to understand that in Hinduism, it is said that whatever you see, listen, feel is God.. And as Sun is one of the main elements that helps in the sustainability of livelihood in this world, it is no surprise we celebrate the existence of Sun God. We wake up early, make a lot of food and take the food and Sugar cane to the roof tops and stand in the Sun offering food to him and thanking him for giving us Sunlight which is THE MAIN reason why we have agriculture and food for humans. Can we even imagine a world without Sun?? I guess not...

It is extremely important day for all of us, primarily farmers as they main intention of this day is to request Son God to keep blessing us to have good agriculture so that nobody will sleep with hunger. This day also for thanking all natural resources that help us live on this earth.

Day 3 - Maattu Pongal:

In Tamil language, the word Maadu means "Cow".. so it is easy now for you to understand what this festival is about.. yes, this is for us to celebrate Cows and Bulls.. Have you ever heard stereotypes about Indians and cows?? people who does not know our culture makes fun of us and our respect towards cows.. In our mythology, Cow is given the same importance that you give to a Mother.. Cow is literally seen as Mother as it gives us Milk.. Not only that, it is believed that all Gods reside in a cow and a cow needs to be always worshiped. It is extremely serious as once hurting a cow means, there is consequences waiting for them in hell.. Also, those who kill a cow, there is no forgiveness to that sin..

Look at the above pic, you will notice them doing Pooja or Prayers to the bull and also done the same for Cow.. In Tamil Nadu state, in several villages, they conduct a massive event called "Jallikattu" where they leave around 20 bulls to run and players from the massive crowd can hold the hump of a bull for longer time..and attempting the bull to stop running.. winners are awarded money. Some parts even tie money to bull horns and those who are capable can retrieve money from the bull horns as the bull is running.

Okay, before animal cruelty activists say something on this event, let me say that these bulls ARE NOT HURT WHATSOEVER like you see those in Spain bull fights.. because nobody is allowed to hurt a bull here and it is actually seen as crime to hurt bulls and those people be banished from the games forever.. and the reason why this event is done is for the reproduction of cow population.. The bulls that participated are taken to the cows for breeding purposes as they tend to produce strongest and healthiest offspring...

Day 4 - Kanuma or Kaanum Pongal

This is the last day of the festival and used for relaxation and sight seeing purposes. Also celebrated one of the greatest Tamil poets in history called "Thiruvalluvar" as he gave "Thirukkural" to the world which has 1330 poems and all of these are words of wisdom. The word "Kaanum" means "Seeing" and hence this day is also used for match making purposes in arranged marriages. People also arrange "naming ceremonies" or "weddings" as this is seen as an auspicious day for all of us.

That's all for this post guys, so basically this festival is celebrated to worship Sun, all the natural resources of this nature and thanking God for giving us food and to bless the future irrigation and asking God to never let anybody sleep in hunger..

Let us wish that nobody sleeps in Hunger in this earth.. nobody deserves that.. God bless you everyone.

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Yours bloggingly

@Theblackdoll