Holi Through the Ages: From the Mughals to Modern Times, the Colorful Celebrations of Spring

Holi is a very ancient Indian festival. It is mentioned in Dandin’s Sanskrit play Dasa-kumaracharita and Sri Harsha’s Ratnavali, both of which are 1300 years old. Holi is also mentioned in the Puranas of similar antiquity and is resplendent in all the performing arts.

The English were fascinated with this festival, right from the 17th century. The Oxford Dictionary called it ‘Houly’ in 1687, ‘Hoolee’ in 1698, ‘Huli’ in 1798, ‘Hoh-lee’ in 1809 and so on.

Holi goes by different names in India as well. It’s Phaguaa in Bihar and  Dol-Jatra or Dola Purnima in Bengal, Odisha and Assam. In Maharashtra, it is celebrated as Shimga and in Goa-Konkan this spring festival goes by the name Shigmo. They call it Ukkuli in southern Konkan.

Spring is, after all, the celebration of youth and some amount of unrestrained behaviour is visible in all cultures. Foreigners have recorded, right from the medieval period, that obscene songs were sung.  William Crooke noted this in the 1880s, and so did M.M Underhill, that lewd language was used in Holi, along with “free dancing of men and women.” The real Holi is said to be in Mathura and Vrindavan. Still, it is the Lathmar Holi of Barsana that takes the cake. As women beat up their menfolk with sticks, playfully with a touch of sensuality, that comes out openly through provocative songs.

As we move down the banks of the Ganga, we find Holi is celebrated as the patriotic Ganga Mela in Kanpur but Benaras must have its mud wrestling. Further down, the Phaguaa of Bihar, which is a predominantly Bhojpuri version, is celebrated with wild abandon and wet mud and clay often substitute colours. Intoxicating bhang made from cannabis, milk and spices and served as thandai has been an essential feature of the celebrations and the dances that come with the beat of the dholak only lift the mood even higher.

Andhra Pradesh celebrates Holi as part of Vasant Panchami but the folk of Karnataka and Telangana insist that it is not the demoness Holika that is burnt in the sacred fire. They say it is the naughty erotic god Kama-Devata, hence, they call it Kama-dahana. Destroying Kamadeva in spring is, however, easier said than done as the heart is lighter. This is evident in much of Holi’s ‘excesses’.

In Tamil Nadu, it is Panguni-Uthiram and people celebrate the marriage anniversaries of many pre-Hindu deities on this date. This was obviously to assimilate them into the broad band of Hindu worship. In Kerala, it is a rather low-key celebration called Manjal Kuli (turmeric bath).

When we head straight north to Punjab, we see how houses are painted afresh and how rural women create exquisite artworks called Chowk-Poorna, on cloth with colourful motifs. Holika burning is not a primary event as Holi is Basant Utsav, but it is certainly more religious than in other states. Punjab’s very important three-day festival Hola Mohalla usually coincides with Holi and is replete with kirtan, music and langar food. It is the occasion to forgive and forget and embrace one and all. The event concludes with a long, “military-style” procession near Takht Keshgarh Sahib, one of the five seats of temporal authority of the Sikhs.

Bengal has two traditions to uphold — Chaitanya Dev’s Dol celebrations and Rabindranath’s Basanta Utsav. Shri Chaitanya emphasised Krishna’s reunion with Radha during this scintillating Purnima that he insisted was Dol Yatra while the rest of India focuses on the mythology of good winning over evil during Holi when Holika gets killed in the very fire in which she was trying to murder Prahlad. The Basant Utsav that is commemorated in Bengal’s Santiniketan is a very graceful ceremony that was started by Tagore, in which young women and men dress up in bright yellow and welcome spring through exquisite songs and dances.

In Gujarat, Holi is a two-day festival, where raw coconuts and corn are thrown into the Holika bonfire and since the rabi crop is ripe, it calls for more intense celebrations: with dance, food and music. Mock fights between young girls and boys over a pot of butter milk adds to the general entertainment.

Incidentally, Holi was celebrated on a grand scale by Akbar and the two Mughal emperors who succeeded him —which is attested by numerous miniature paintings of this festival.

Celebrating spring is great but it is the season of the most diseases — air-borne and water-borne — that reach their peak in spring. The deadly smallpox is called Basant in Bengal. Interestingly, the Pracheen Smritis mention this festival centuries before Chaitanya, and remark that the so-called ‘lower castes’ uttered terrible profanities. More significant is its clear mention that “touching of the low caste on the second day of Holi, followed by bathing means that all kinds of illness are destroyed”.

This is an intriguing explanation, as Holi drew people of all castes to mix as they never did for the rest of the year. This intermingling must have conferred some of the immunity that the harder so-called ‘menial classes’ had to the more hygiene-conscious ‘upper strata’. The obsession of the upper castes for ‘purity’ actually made them more vulnerable to disease — very much like our NRIs get sick with the food we relish as their stomachs are more delicate.

Thus, Holi’s mandate to mix with all, irrespective of caste or class appears so gratifying but may well have served the purpose of acquiring better immunity — In fact, the gulal powder made from marigolds has protective medicinal properties.