The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV | Page 7

of a
single man, and the animal is now more or less sacred as one of the
cow tribe. But the annual joint sacrifice of one or more buffaloes is a
regular feature of the Dasahra festival and extends over a great part of

India. In Betul and other districts the procedure is that on the Dasahra
day, or a day before, the Mang and Kotwar, two of the lowest village
menials, take a buffalo bull and bring it to the village proprietor, who
makes a cut on its nose and draws blood. Then it is taken all round the
village and to the shrines of the gods, and in the evening it is killed and
the Mang and Kotwar eat the flesh. It is now believed that if the blood
of a buffalo does not fall at Dasahra some epidemic will attack the
village, but as there are no longer any wild buffaloes except in the
denser forests of one or two Districts, the original meaning of the rite
might naturally have been forgotten. [10]

10. The Dasahra festival
The Dasahra festival probably marks the autumnal equinox and also the
time when the sowing of wheat and other spring crops begins. Many
Hindus still postpone sowing the wheat until after Dasahra, even
though it might be convenient to begin before, especially as the festival
goes by the lunar month and its date varies in different years by more
than a fortnight. The name signifies the tenth day, and prior to the
festival a fast of nine days is observed, when the pots of wheat
corresponding to the gardens of Adonis are sown and quickly sprout up.
This is an imitation of the sowing and growth of the real crop and is
meant to ensure its success. During these nine days it is said that the
goddess Devi was engaged in mortal combat with the buffalo demon
Mahisasur or Bhainsasur, and on the tenth day or the Dasahra she slew
him. The fast is explained as being observed in order to help her to
victory, but it is really perhaps a fast in connection with the growing of
the crops. A similar nine daysfast for the crops was observed by the
Greeks. [11]

11. The goddess Devi
Devi signifies 'the goddess' par excellence. She is often the tutelary
goddess of the village and of the family, and is held to have been
originally Mother Earth, which may be supposed to be correct. In tracts

where the people of northern and southern India meet she is identified
with Anna Purna, the corn-goddess of the Telugu country; and in her
form of Gauri or 'the Yellow One' she is perhaps herself the yellow
corn. As Gauri she is worshipped at weddings in conjunction with
Ganesh or Ganpati, the god of Good Fortune; and it is probably in
honour of the harvest colour that Hindus of the upper castes wear
yellow at their weddings and consider it lucky. A Brahman also prefers
to wear yellow when eating his food. It has been seen [12] that red is
the lucky colour of the lower castes of Hindus, and the reason probably
is that the shrines of their gods are stained red with the blood of the
animals sacrificed. High-caste Hindus no longer make animal sacrifices,
and their offerings to Siva, Vishnu and Devi consist of food, flowers
and blades of corn. Thus yellow would be similarly associated with the
shrines of the gods. All Hindu brides have their bodies rubbed with
yellow turmeric, and the principal religious flower, the marigold, is
orange-yellow. Yellow is, however, also lucky as being the colour of
Vishnu or the Sun, and a yellow flag is waved above his great temple at
Ramtek on the occasion of the fair. Thus Devi as the corn-goddess
perhaps corresponds to Demeter, but she is not in this form an animal
goddess. The Hindus worshipping Mother Earth, as all races do in the
early stage of religion, may by a natural and proper analogy have
ascribed the gift of the corn to her from whom it really comes, and have
identified her with the corn-goddess. This is by no means a full
explanation of the goddess Devi, who has many forms. As Parvati, the
hill-maiden, and Durga, the inaccessible one, she is the consort of Siva
in his character of the mountain-god of the Himalayas; as Kali, the
devourer of human flesh, she is perhaps the deified tiger; and she may
have assimilated yet more objects of worship into her wide divinity.
But there seems no special reason to hold that she is anywhere believed
to be the deified buffalo; and the probable explanation of the Dasahra
rite would therefore seem to be that the buffalo was at first venerated as
the corn-god