The Diwâlî, or Feast of Lamps.
The regular Diwâlî, or Feast of Lamps, which is performed on the last day of the dark fortnight in the month of Kârttik, is more of a city than a rural festival. But even in the villages everyone burns a lamp outside the house on that night.
The feast has, of course, been provided with an appropriate legend. Once upon a time an astrologer foretold to a Râja that on the new moon of Kârttik his Kâl, or fate, would appear at midnight in the form of a snake; that the way to avoid this was that he should order all his subjects on that night to keep their houses, streets, and lanes clean; that there should be a general illumination; that the king, too, should place a lamp at his door, and at the four corners of his couch, and sprinkle rice and sweetmeats everywhere.
If the door-lamp went out it was foretold that he would become insensible, and that he was to tell his Rânî to sing the praises of the snake when it arrived. These instructions were carefully carried out, and the snake was so pleased with his reception, that he told the Rânî to ask any boon she pleased. She asked for long life for her husband. The snake replied that it was out of his power to grant this, but that he would make arrangements with Yamarâja, the lord of the dead, for the escape of her husband, and that she was to continue to watch his body.
Then the snake carried off the spirit of the king to Yamarâja. When the papers of the king’s life were produced before Yamarâja his age was denoted by a cipher, but the kindly snake put a seven before it, and thus raised his age to seventy years. Then Yamarâja said: “I find that this person has still seventy years to live. Take him back at once.” So the snake brought back the soul of the king, and he revived and lived for seventy years more, and established this feast in honour of the event. Much the same idea appears in one of Grimm’s German tales.18
The original basis of the feast seems to have been the idea that on this night the spirits of the dead revisit their homes, which are cleaned and lighted for their reception. Now it is chiefly observed in honour of Lakshmî, the goddess of wealth and good luck, who is propitiated by gambling. On this night the women make what is called “the new moon lampblack” (Amâwas Kâ Kâjal), which is used throughout the following year as a charm against the Evil Eye, and, as we have already seen, the symbolical expulsion of poverty goes on.
Immediately following this festival is the Bhaiyya Dûj, or “Brothers’ second,” when sisters make a mark on the foreheads of their brothers and cause them to eat five grains of gram. These must be swallowed whole, not chewed, and bring length of days. The sister then makes her brother sit facing the east, and feeds him with sweetmeats, in return for which he gives her a present.