Chapter Fourteen The Events of the Solar Cycle
1. " Sankranti[ *] " refers to the passage of the sun from one sign of the zodiac to the following one, which constitutes the basis for the sequential progression of the twelve solar months (Kane 1968-1977) vol. V, p. 210). [BACK]
2. The numbers in brackets refer to the position of solar events within the sequence of lunar calendrical events in 1975/76. [BACK]
3. Major offerings to Brahmans were traditionally done in South Asia on all sankranti[ *] (Kane 1968-1977, vol. V, p. 212). [BACK]
4. G. S. Nepali (1965, 386) presents some details on the observations of the day, presumably among village Jyapu families, which are unfamiliar to us for Bhaktapur. [BACK]
5. It is unique, that is, in its particular combination of elements at a particular time. Some of those elements are reflections of Kathmandu's Indra Jatra (see festivals [59-65], chap. 14); others are closely similar to aspects of a festival in the Newar town of Panauti about two months later (Barré, Berger, Feveile, and Toffin 1981, 45). [BACK]
6. According to Gautam Vajracharya (personal communication), this is an echo of the form of the term in classical Newari, yalasi(n) . "Si" here means "pillar" as well as "tree." Vajracharya glosses the word " yalasi(n) '' as "sacrificial pillar." Variants of the term are found in other religious forms, such as the central pillar of Newar stupas. The poles that are erected to represent Indra during Kathmandu's Indra Jatra are also yasi(n) . [BACK]
7. According to D. R. Regmi (1965-1966, vol. II, p. 650), the term "Biska:" (in its Nepali form, Bisket) derives from Visvaketu, the "universal flag," which was the name given to banners that are attached to the "arms" of the yasi(n) . Bhaktapur has its own folk etymology, which we will note below. [BACK]
8. The major components of the Biska: festival sequence in our treatment are the Bhairava/Bhadrakali Jatra [20] from the first to the ninth day, the raising of the large Yasi(n) God [21] on the fourth day, the "taking out" of the Tantric gods [22] on the fourth day, the Varahi Jatra [23] on the fourth day, the taking down of the Yasi(n) God [24] on the fifth day, Indrani[ *] Jatra [25] on the fifth day, Mahakali/Mahalaksmi Jatra [26] on the sixth day, Brahmani/Mahesvari[ *] Jatra [27] on the seventh day, the procession worhiping the gods that had previously been taken out [28] on the eighth day, and Chuma(n) Ganedya: Jatra [29] on the eighth day. [BACK]
9. According to G. S. Nepali (1965, 344), it was traditionally the responsibility of the Sa:mi (or Manandhar) thar to select, cut with the proper ritual, and supervise the dragging of the tree to Bhaktapur. This is the same thar whose members in Kathmandu are responsible for selecting and bringing the tree used for the yasi(n) in Kathmandu's Indra Jatra. [BACK]
10. The location where the tree is to be cut is "explained" by one of the legends about the yasi(n) ,which we will present below. [BACK]
11. In the course of the Biska: festival Bhadrakali[ *] is generally referred to by her honorific title, "Naki(n) Ajima," "the leader of the mothers (or grandmothers)," that is the dangerous goddesses. Bhadrakali[ *] is a name occasionally given Sakti in the Tantric tradition. It is used a very few times as an appellation of the Goddess in the Devi Mahatmya. [BACK]
12. During the Mohani festival the goddess of the mandalic[ *] area is sometimes called "Bhadrakali[ *] " rather than "Vaisnavi[ *] ," but in that case they are simply two names for the goddess of that area. [BACK]
13. For some notes on this and other Newar ritual chariots, see Gutschow (1979 b ). [BACK]
14. This sword, carried at this point by a representative of the central government, is taken by it to represent the contemporary central authority. When Prthvinarayana Saha conquered the Kathmandu Valley, he maintained traditional Newar festivals, but for those that had important political implications, references to the new regime were understood to have been substituted for references to Malla kings. Although the sword represents to the political authorities themselves and to other Nepalis the sign of the superordinate authority of the central regime, to many local people in Bhaktapur this symbol, and many other such symbols still represent the traditional Malla kings; hence, the significance of the carrying and the handing over of the sword m this preliminary event becomes significantly altered m its local implications. [BACK]
15. In other jatra s images of deities are usually carried in palanquins called kha:ca , or 'little chariots." [BACK]
16. For some detailed photographs of the Bhairava chariot, see Gutschow (1982, 82-85). [BACK]
17. According to Gutschow's account (1984), the musicians are from the low Jugi thar and the man who carries the sukunda is from the marginally clean Bha thar . [BACK]
18. This is an important example of the "advertised secrecy" that we discussed in chapter 9. [BACK]
19. The head of Bhairava separated from his body is an element of one of the legends associated with the festival, which we will recount below. [BACK]
20. The Maha(n) constitute a category, now containing two thar s (Caguthi and Muguthi) within the middle-status segment of the Jyapus. According to Manandhar, who has the name Maha:(n), the word derives from the old Newari term mahatha , "a military commander, a very Important military post in Malla days. . .. From this the term Maharjan was taken as a caste name or surname by a section of Jyapus to avoid the contempt associated with the name Jyapu." He notes also that "those who were in military service during the days of the Malla kings were called maha:(n) ." (1975, 444). The military commanders (as opposed to the soldiers) have their thar descendants, as Manandhar notes, in the Chathar Amatya (alternately called "Mahaju") thar . [BACK]
21. As we noted in the previous chapter, the Pulu Kisi Haigu [65] is another, but comparatively minor, occasion when conflict between the city halves is expressed. [BACK]
22. In the years of social change and breakdown of traditional patterns just after the study, some of the fights initiated by the tug of war were very severe, extensive, and difficult to control, and threatened the performance of the jatra itself. [BACK]
23. A hiti is a traditional water fountain. A ga: hiti , according to Manandhar, is "the old type of fountain located m a depression in the earth" (1976, 627). Bhaktapur Newari, like Kathmandu Newari, has the form " hiti ," but has a long final "i" for this particular place name. [BACK]
24. The Kathmandu version of the term ( syaku tyaku ) refers to another occasion "the main day of the Dasain [Mohani] festival, involving a feast and a visit to the goddess Durga. The word is popularly reinterpreted. . . [to mean] 'However much you kill you don't have to repay as retribution; what is killed [and eaten] is for the goddess and is not for self-interest, thus the killer is exempt from the blood-guilt of the animals slaughtered'" (Manandhar 1976, 606). [BACK]
25. The sequence of Das Karma signifies for a deity its birth or more accurately rebirth, and is characteristic of deities who reappear during each annual cycle. [BACK]
26. The erection of a pole, or a pole with banners, on the solar New Year's Day is (and was) found elsewhere in South Asia (e.g., Underhill, 1921; D. R. Regmi, 1965-1966, part II, p. 650). [BACK]
27. The yasi(n) s are symbolically connected in a very minimal way by saying they are consorts, with the larger central yasi(n) being the male, the smaller secondary one the female. [BACK]
28. A quotation from Gutschow illustrates this historical, archaeological approach to cultural features. "We do not know the reason behind the apparent . . . [parallelism] of the two poles [the two yasi(n) s]. The clue might again, [as] in so many cases, lie in the spatial development of the town. We also do not know why Bhairava and Bhadrakali[ *] 'take residence' in temporary 'houses' in Lakulache(n). . . . All these activities point to a former center with its New Year ritual. With the unification of a number of villages, the construction of new temples and the installation of a more elaborate and grander ritual the needs of an enlarged community was served. Older places of reference were then incorporated; . . . modification of rituals and a change of the spatial setting tend to incorporate preceding patterns. The present ritual might well reflect the existence of a more ancient setting, thus telling us in a hidden form about the history of the place" (Gutschow 1984, 17). The legends of the Chuma(n) Ganedya: Jatra (see text below) refer, in fact, to an enlargement or founding of Bhaktapur in connection with the establishment of Biska:. [BACK]
29. It is these banners, as we have noted above, which may have provided Biska: with its name. [BACK]
30. As we have noted in chapter 8, each of the eight Matrkas traditionally has a specific Bhairava consort, independent subforms of that deity. This particular iconic feature of the Yasi(n) God unites the diverse couples into one. [BACK]
31. In other Newari and South Asian versions of this tale, only one snake appears. The extra snake adapts Bhaktapur's version to the two banners on the yasi(n) . [BACK]
32. Anderson's version of the story (1971, 41f.) has an important variant. Here the sole and "excessively passionate" daughter of the Bhaktapur king takes a different lover each night, the duty of providing a lover rotating among city households. Each morning the lover is found dead, until the arrival of the successful prince puts an end to the danger. It is of interest to compare different published versions of this story. In the episode of the snake, D. R. Regmi (1965-1966, part II, p. 650) and Hale and Hale (1970, 248ff. [a direct transcription of a Newari verbal account]) describe one snake coming out of the princess's nose. Anderson (1971) tells of two "dark threads" coming one each from the princess's two nostrils, which "rapidly expanded into monstrous serpents writhing about in search of their usual victim." The version of the story given by Punya Ratna Bajracharya, a Newar, in the Nepalese newspaper "Rising Nepal'' (April 18, 1974) is "as he [the soon to be victorious prince] kept awake he saw a very tiny snake coming out from the womb [i.e., vagina] of his queen and it assumed a terrible form and tried to attack him, but he took out his sword and slew it." It was only after the slaying of this serpent, or serpents, that marriage to the princess was possible. [BACK]
33. This refers to events that will take place subsequently. [BACK]
34. D. R. Regmi recounts a similar story (1965-1966, part II, p. 651). [BACK]
35. There were two Licchavi kings of that name noted in inscriptions who reigned in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. (Slusser 1982, vol. 1, p. 397). [BACK]
36. Gutschow and others have made the plausible suggestion that as the yasi(n) is often interpreted as a linga[ *] , the hole must represent a yoni , or vagina, and that "the erection of the pole can be understood as a reenactment of primal procreation" (Gutschow 1984, 16). Although sexual union is dearly understood in cultural doctrine to be symbolized by other subsequent aspects of the Biska: cycle, this meaning does not seem to be overtly associated by religious experts, at least, with the placing of the yasi(n) into its base. [BACK]
37. If it were to fall, as it sometimes does, it would be not only dangerous to the people working to lift it but also taken as a sign of danger for the city. [BACK]
38. Gutschow has studied this phase of Biska:. He notes that individual deities may be added (and presumably discontinued) from time to time, and notes examples of two deities who were added, at least one of which was brought from a village outside Bhaktapur. In 1983 he counted twenty-nine imags that were brought out at this time (1984, 20). [BACK]
39. In the course of their jatra s the images of Kumari and Tripurasundari are carried to their pitha s outside of the city as are the other Mandalic[ *] Goddesses whose jatra s are emphasized (see below). [BACK]
40. Gutschow (1984) observes that the movement of these Tantric deities out of their god-houses and to the outside area where they are exhibited resembles, in part, the movement of the Mandalic[ *] Goddesses from their god-houses to their pitha s outside of the city in the major jatra s of this period. [BACK]
41. This conjunction of the internal representation of a dangerous deity and its external pitha or natural stone representation is also enacted, as we have noted (chap. 9), m lineage deity ceremonies. [BACK]
42. The Jugi also have another connection with this day. Some five-and-a-half months previously, on the lunar day of Bala Ca:re [7], one of their members had begun dances m the city representing Siva as Mahadeva. On this day, the fifth day of Biska:, with the falling of the Yasi(n) God, the period proper to this representation comes to an end. [BACK]
43. Indrani[ *] and some of the other deities who have jatra s during the Biska: period also have jatra s during the lunar cycle. These are Indrani[ *] Jatra [61], Varahi Jatra [53], and Chuma(n) Gandya: Jatra [63]. [BACK]
44. It is not clear why it is Indrani[ *] who receives this special royal greeting rather than the other jatra gods of Biska:. This emphasis is a reminder of the various connections between Biska: and Kathmandu's Indra Jatra. [BACK]
45. This alignment of the chariot, like the direction in which the Yasi(n) God will soon be swayed, would seem plausibly to be related to the sun's east-west path. However, such a connection is not known now to our informants. [BACK]
46. On the evening of this day the Po(n)s have feasts in their houses and invite other Po(n)s from other communities. [BACK]
47. Whatever the significance of the lack of contamination of the two men who touch the untouchables while giving the prasada on this day may be, the others on the chariot are protected from contamination because the chariot is a temple. This protects the riders of the chariot from pollution in the next phase when the Po(n)s pull at the ropes at the back of the chariot. [BACK]
48. It is noteworthy that the upper-status thar men, including Brahmans, who participate in the pulling of the chariot on the first and last days of the cycle, do not do It on this day when the Po(n)s are also involved. [BACK]
49. This Bhairava stone also marks the place where during the Mohani festival Taleju gives full power to the Nine Durgas troupe and takes leave of them as they begin their annual mission. [BACK]
50. Manandhar notes that ''this verb requires plural actors and originally meant 'to meet at one place.' This meaning is still current in the causative form of the verb [as found in the phrase] dya: lwakala. 'The deities were made to meet at one place' . . . [this] does not mean that the deities were made to fight" (1976, 529). However, whatever its original implication may have been, in the present generalization of the meaning of the term from its use in other contexts, it now seems to convey the meaning of fighting, at least m Bhaktapur. [BACK]
51. These hesitations between interpretations of sexual intercourse and aggression represent familiar psychodynamic forms as modified by Bhaktapur's special ways of dealing with these problematic passions. For our present purposes it is sufficient to note that these are critical ambiguities that hold the attention, intellect, and passions of the spectators and participants, and help make this element of the festival sequence—like so many others—compelling, significant, and "alive." [BACK]
52. There are other examples when for some limited purpose one of a pair of goddesses is interpreted as male so that they can be conceived of as a husband and wife, or man and woman. One is Brahmani and Mahesvari on the following day, another is Sima and Duma during the Nine Durgas performances (chap. 16). In that latter case it is generally agreed that Sima is male and Duma female, probably as an accident of color contrasts in their images. [BACK]
53. The Natapwa(n)la temple contains, as we noted in chapter 8, an esoteric form of the Goddess that was placed there to act as a restraining influence on the Bhairava of the main Bhairava temple, also located in the square, who is also the Bhairava of Biska:. [BACK]
54. The dangerous deities are not considered to be married in the domestic sense that the benign deities are (see chap. 8). [BACK]
55. Gutschow (1984, 24) remarks that people must leave the ordinary route to include visits to Bhairava in his jatra god-house in Lakulache(n) and at two other places. [BACK]
56. These offerings are called "giving Swaga(n) to the gods." [BACK]
57. Chu(n) means both rat and/or mouse. As we have noted, this same Ganesa[ *] has another jatra [63] during the course of the lunar year. The rat or mouse is the traditional vehicle of Ganesa[ *] . In Bhaktapur's representations the vehicle is usually a tichu(n) , a shrew. [BACK]
58. Theoretically parallel events may be significantly contrastive. This is the case in the presence or absence among various thar s during a festival of the Aga(n) God worship that characterizes upper-level thar s. With that exception, however, contrastive parallel events among otherwise similar units are not salient during Bhaktapur's annual festivals. [BACK]
59. The princess is unaware of her destructive nature, and can be treated as an innocent wife after her indwelling serpents have been destroyed. This is reminiscent of Parvati's relation to her Durga emanation as suggested in the Devi Mahatmya stories (chap. 8). [BACK]