The Cycle of Time

The Bengali year begins with the month of Boiśakh (April-May). It is a solar year, each solar month ending with the passing of the sun into a new house of the zodiac. Divisions within the month are lunar. There are two halves to each month according to the waxing and waning of the moon: the bright and the dark. These cut across the solar month. Each day within these halves is a lunar unit called the tithi (which does not correspond to the solar day). Tithis are numbered from one to fourteen, beginning with the day after full moon and new moon. Taken inclusively, one cycle consists of sixteen tithis. The discrepancy between tithi and day is reconciled by adding a number of tithis in the appropriate months.

The lunar months are counted within the solar year by equalizing them, by the addition of tithis, with solar months as defined by the passage of the sun from rasi to rasi (houses of the zodiac). The 1968-69 Bengali year happened to begin with the first day of the solar month and the first tithi of the lunar month. As the lunar calendar falls behind the solar, an extra full day/night tithi is added, beyond the regular addition of a tithi (when the difference between tithi and day reaches a full tithi).

The lunar month has thirty tithis (twenty-eight days) and one or two additional tithis; an extra "full-day" tithi makes up the solar month when the lunar month is thirty-two days,'one "day" extra when thirty-one, and one tithi extra when thirty (with additions up to four days).

Each solar month has a full and a new moon in it: hence the months are both solar and lunar, though the number of tithis and days fluctuate within them. If we take the solar count as constant, then the full moon would fall on any solar day within the month, varying eleven days in the year.

The fourteen days preceding the new moon or Amabassa are called the dark half, Krsna Pakkha. The fourteen tithis preceding full moon, or Purnima, are called the bright, or Śukla Pakkha. The pakkhas also mark months, depending on which pakkha begins the month. The lunar month consists of two pakkhas and two tithis for Amabassa and Purnima. The solar month to which the lunar month gives its name cuts across the pakkhas, yet part of each half would appear in the solar month (parts of pakkhas may form one month). Since the lunar and solar months do not synchronize, and since the festivals and pujas follow the lunar schedule (because all pujas occur on a particular tithi and are known by the name of the tithi), often there is great variation in the solar days on which the pujas fall each month. The fourteen tithis are the first, Pratipada; second, Ditiya; third, Trit-iya; fourth, Caturthi; fifth, Pancam!; sixth, Sasthi seventh, Saptam!; eighth, Aśtami; ninth, Navaml; tenth, DasamY; eleventh, Ekadasi; twelfth, Dadasi; thirteenth, Trayadas!; and the fourteenth, Caturdasi. These terms are important because puja days are often referred to by the tithi number alone. There is a very close connection between the calendar, the categories of the calendar, and pujas. The smaller time divisions of prahar (about three hours), danda, and muhurta are all significant units of ritual. Certain actions must take place at certain moments (muhurta) within a certain prahar (the first, second, third, or fourth part of the night) or within a certain tithi. The major units are all associated with pujas. The Purnima of each month is always the occasion for some special worship (Dol Purnima of the God Krsna; Kojagari Purnima of the Goddess Laksmi. Amabassa is devoted to the worship of the Goddess Kali. The bright half usually contains the pujas of Visnu, the dark half the pujas of Kali Śiva, and Bhairab. Sankranti ends the solar month and occasions celebrations as in the harvest festival of Pouś Sankranti (January-February). Caitra Sankranti is the end of the Bengali year, and it is also marked by a series of rituals. The lunar tithis are also significant: there are certain pujas for each tithi (general acts of worship appropriate to each day), and certain major pujas fall on particular tithis. The name (number) of the tithi is also the name of the puja. So the worship of Sarasvat! must take place on the fifth tithi in the bright half of the month of Magh (January-February), and the celebration is known as Scripancami The fifth in the dark half of Jaistha (May-June) is Nagpancami the feast of Manasa,Ý goddess of snakes. The birthday feast of Krsna falls on the eighth of the dark half in Bhadra (August-September).

The major days of the Durga festival, for example, fall on the sixth (Sasthi) seventh (Saptami), eighth (Aśtami), ninth (Navami), and tenth (Dasami). Debl worship proper begins on the seventh (the sixth is the night of invocation). This being the major puja of the year, the tithis are called maha; or the great, so Mahasaptami Mahaaśtami and so on (the great seventh, the great eighth).

The gajan festival of Śiva generally follows the solar schedule. There are variations, however. The main gajans take place around the end of the solar year; the abargajans, usually smaller celebrations, may occur in the first or second month of the new year. The days within the festival are solar, but they are named after the distinguishing characteristics of the pujas that take place.

The rituals of the year exhibit fully the organizing significance of puja in Bishnupur. Pujas complete the calendar from month to month, season to season. They define social groups, individual castes and clusters of castes, localities and people, and lines of descent in localities. Pujas draw the social and spatial maps of the town, a mosaic in different coloured out­lines.

There are three major cult cycles; the Bisnu-Laksmi, Sib-Durga, and Bhumi-Debota (jungle or earth deity) complexes. These cycles include smaller cults within them, but they are the largest division in a segmentary system. There is no one-to-one correlation here between caste, social structure, religion, ideology; rather these are partial images of each other, not determined by any one 'reality' but being equally real in the context' of a particular field. So the Bisnu cycle of rites corresponds to the sattvik in the ideological scheme, the Durga-Sib rites to the rajasik and the Bhumi­debota cycle to the tamasik. The same image is reflected in the social world : the Bisnu cycle is characteristically `high', the Sib-Durga is `high' relative to 'low' castes, the earth deities are `low.' It is clear however that a 'high' deity, a high' jati and a `high' cult are not straight correlations : high caste people also worship Deities of the Earth, and Durga Debi rites also have high as well as low participants. The point to remember here, how­ ever, is that these cycles have distinguishing features which place them in a particular class or category while they share many other features with other cults. So the Bisnu-Laksmi cycle shares features with all other cycles but there is no animal sacrifice (ball) in the rituals, food offerings are niramis (without meat) and the accent is on devotion and purity. These characteristics make the Bisnu rites sativic(both as ideology and action).

Correspondingly the Boisnabs (devotees of Bishnu) attribute certain pure, sattvik, characteristics to their way of life. There are low caste devotees and ritual schemes in this cycle but in the ideal scheme this is a high order cult, without any involvement in the world of desire and profit, power and rule. Such is the image of Boisnab and Brahman, not the actual social groups, but the ideal in renunciation. Similarly the Durga cult emphasizes power and rule (linking Sib to the functions of rule and king­ship). Blood-sacrifice distinguishes this cycle which insists on the World rather than renunciation. The King is cast in the image of the Durga cycle, hence the latter is also the image of rajosik ideology. Though this does not correspond to mid-ranking castes because all castes are involved in the worship, it is associated with the Raja order of life in the ideology. Even more so in the bliumi-debota cycle the accent is on everyday life. The tamosik is the image of sloth and, trouble, care and inertia, the inability to act because of the pressures in the life of the householder. Again there is no clear class or caste correlation here but the tainosik is the lowest order of life, fully in the world, on the receiving end of all social experience. The deities involved are the ones that affect men directly, harmful when neglected, beneficial or indifferent when served properly. These deities are related to the line, locality, caste, aspects of hostile or favourable ex­perience ; they govern and define the unity of the social and cultural worlds through the pujas in their honour. They share with the deities of the Durga­Sib cycle the blood sacrifices and other characteristics, but they are unique in their malevolence and direct intervention in human life. In this way they are linked to ghosts and spirits who also have to be propitiated. They are close to men, having to do with demands, diseases, accidents, quarrels, and hatred. They are responsible for bad things but they are also part of the other cycles, for they complete the order left unfinished by the others. Even in the Boisnab ideology there is a sphere left to these deities. The cycle is distinguished by its ritualists (a category of priest that does not participate in, the other cycles) by sacrifice (not only goat but pig and chicken). Their gods are situated under trees and on small clay platforms truly Deities of the Earth.

The divisions above are ideal : one can identify rites in one or another scheme but there is no way of constructing tight boundaries around these images. They slice the complex whole in different ways, in overlapping and cross cutting circles, truly, ideological in that they interpret complex experience and provide a rationale for action.