AKSHAY TRITIYA
Jawhar Sircar
Over a hundred years ago, British observers had noted
that “Akshaya Tritiya is kept throughout India on the third day of Vaishaka Shukla-paksha.
To bathe this day and to give fans, umbrellas and money to the Brahmans is
believed to earn imperishable merit. The performance of it is consequentially
very popular.” Celebrated in all provinces, this festival which falls on the
third day of the bright half of Vaishaka, is also called Akha Teej in
the Hindi belt. It is observed by Jains with equal fervor, but let us make a special
note of the merit of daana, and move on.
Many religions of the world believe in auspicious
moments, but none can come even close to the Hindus’ obsession with shubha
murhurats and the meticulous calculations that determine it. When people
question how such an unstructured religion could hold together for centuries,
with neither Vatican-Mecca, nor a Pope, Patriarch, Khalifa or Grand Imam, one needs
to understand the common codes that governed all believers, through an
intricate and omnipresent network of a priestly class. Among these codes are the
consulting the Panchanga or Panjika, where lunar and solar
calibrations mix with astronomy, astrology and religious requirements into a
unique discipline. Though differences do exist between ‘schools’ and in the
methods of calculation, they are broadly similar where most festivals, events,
good and bad periods and the best muhartas are concerned.
Akshay Tritiya is
a fine example of the common core of pan-Indian beliefs and is among the ‘three
and a half most auspicious timings‘, the Sade-Teen Muhurtas or tithis
(lunar days) of Hindus. The other two are the first of Chaitra and Vijaya
Dashami, while the first day of the bright half in Karttika is the
‘half tithi. This occasion is associated with the Mahabharata as Vyasa
Muni started dictating the epic to Ganesha. It was on this day that Draupadi
saved her dignity as Dushasan kept trying to disrobe her because Krishna’s
miracle ensured that she always had a saree draping her. Surya-deva
also gave his divine Akshaya Patra to the Pandavas on this
occasion so that they never ran out of food.
Let us look at the other legends about how auspicious
this date is. Many believe that the Treta Yuga began on this day while
others insist that the Satya Yuga commenced from this day, but they are
so many millions of years ago with no witnesses left, that it makes little
sense to argue still. Ganga descended on the earth on this Tritiya, which is
also dedicated to Vishnu the great preserver. He was born as Parasurama on
this tithi and claimed land from the sea, just like the Dutch did
centuries late. So strong is the belief that he is still worshipped for this
deed on Akshay Tritiya in the Konkan and Malabar regions of India. Bengal
has no followers of Parasurama, perhaps because it faces the reverse
problem of too much land and silt blocking its main rivers with chars:
so his axe could perhaps be used to de-silt the holy river.
The driest period of the year begins with the onset of
summer and as the soil dries in the fierce heat: thus farmers find it simpler
to plough through and granulate the earth. This day was also fixed to remind
agriculturalists to begin tilling and it is considered auspicious all the way
from Odisha to the land of the Jats in Western U.P- Haryana At dawn, elderly
Jats walk to the fields with shovels and observe all birds and animals seen on
the way as harbingers of the next season. Even in Gujarat, this is the day to
take up the plough and Parasurama is again recalled, as he is associated
with the plough. Though this was not traditionally the beginning of the
agricultural season in the South, the almanacs mention it as an important auspicious
date. Fasts are kept by many, to beseech the gods for prosperity.
Basically, it is a festival that stresses on bounty,
whether for business ventures or for agriculture, underlining the importance of
materialism in the Hindu way of life. Annapoorna, the goddess of prosperity celebrates
her birthday and Kubera, the god of wealth is also a central figure in Akshay
Tritiya. The latter is a fascinating character who hides within his many legends
a lot of social history, as Brahmanical narratives are not linear like western
ones, but inter-twined in legends from which we must glean the facts. Kubera
is portrayed as an ugly, puny and pot-bellied Yaksha: personifying
thereby the contempt with which the early pastoral Aryans viewed more prosperous
settled societies of darker, shorter aboriginal Indians. Tales of the fabulous wealth
of non-Aryan tribes abound in Vedic, post-Vedic and Puranic literature and one
reason for this was their in-built habit of creating and converting a part of
their resources from livestock and agricultural produce to more solid forms
like gold and jewels. Akshay Tritiya’s dictum runs on these lines, like
that of Dhan-teras six months later, i.e, to save and diversify one’s
savings, which are exactly the same that modern economists and financial
advisors preach.
Kubera
begins his career in Vedic-era texts as the ‘chief of evil spirits’, Bhuteshwara,
and acquired reluctant acceptance within Sanskrit civilization and his godly
status only a thousand years later, through the Puranas. By this time, the ‘mixed
people’ that Manu talks of are widespread and quite dominant across the entire
sub-continent. So much so, that he was also accepted as a god by the Buddhists
and called Vaisravanta as well as the Jains, who worshipped him as Sarvan-bhuti.
Kubera would continue as an established god of wealth of the Hindus for
more than a million years, until the more Brahmanical Lakshmi would slowly edge
him out. His complexion would also become quite fair as the treasurer of the devas,
though he continued to represent the ‘backward community’ of Ganas, Yakshas,
Kinnaras, Gandharvas and Guhyakas. Nothing comes without a struggle
and Kubera would lose an eye that was said to be mauled by the Devi,
very much like Manasa’s: for daring to rise from a folk-deity status to higher
Brahmanical religion. Akshay Tritiya and Dhan-teras
are occasions for many Hindus to pray to him, as this religion does not really
believe in deletion any divinity but only ‘downgrades’ to honorary status just
like political parties often do with their senior leaders. Incidentally, in his
Buddhist form Kubera reached many countries as religious beliefs never
required visas and in Japan he is worshipped as Bishamon.
As in many states, Bengali entrepreneurs also reserve
this propitious date for commencing new ventures or even to begin their annul
accounts. Sudama’s humble gift of simple puffed rice given to Krishna is
recalled to emhasise the essentiality of making gifts, big or small. “This day
is held sacred by the Hindus because the Shastras declare that the merit
of alms and gifts bestowed during it are permanent”, wrote Rev KS Macdonald in
1836, “and cannot be destroyed by any future sin, and therefore, even misers
unloose their purse strings and are liberal on this day”. This is the crux of
the matter, as the winter crop was already in the granaries and unless a
compulsion and an ‘anticipatory bail’ type of religious mandate was given, the
selfish man would not part with his wealth to the Brahmans or to the destitute.
(English Version of Bengali Article published in Ananda Bazar Patrika on 21st April,2015)
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