of the cosmos through his actions.
Vishnu takes the form of a giant boar
and dives to the bottom of the ocean,
where he slays Hiranyaksha, places the
earth on the tip of his tusk, and lifts her
from the waters. With the reappearance
of the earth, the process of creation
resumed. See also Boar avatar.
Hitopadesha
(“beneficial teaching”) A well-known
moralistic story that is drawn from
Panchatantra, a set of moralistic fables
aimed at conveying practical and worldly
wisdom. The Hitopadeshawas compiled
in the twelfth century as an introductory
reader to Sanskrit.
The frame story for the both of these
texts describes a king who is distressed
by his sons’lack of learning and good
moral character; these doubts lead to
grave misgivings about their abilities to
be good and fair rulers after his death.
He resolves this problem by hiring a
teacher who teaches the boys using
fables, often with several shorter fables
embedded in a longer tale. The
Hitopadeshawas intended to give prag-
matic advice about how to be successful
in the real world and maintains that
caution and self-interest are the keys to
success in life.
Holi
Major religious festival celebrated on the
full moon in the lunar month of
Phalgun (February–March), which in
northern India comes very close to the
end of the lunar year. Holi is essentially a
festival of reversal and is celebrated with
great enthusiasm throughout much of
India. As the lunar year’s final major fes-
tival, the celebrations for Holi mirror the
pattern of cosmic dissolution found in
other units of time, whether the solar
dayor the basic unit of cosmic time, the
mahayuga. In this pattern, the order in
the cosmos steadily deteriorates until all
order finally disappears, but after a cer-
tain time is suddenly, completely, and
perfectly reformed.
The festival of Holi is celebrated in
two parts: a bonfire on the evening
before Holi, and the “festival of colors”
on the morning of Holi itself. Material for
the bonfire is collected in the weeks
before Holi and although the things put
on this bonfire pile are supposed to be
old and worn-out (with the symbolism of
getting rid of the old), much newer
things are often put on it as well, and this
is a time in which people guard their
possessionscarefully.
The days before Holi see the break-
down of various social taboos. In his The
Divine Hierarchy, author Lawrence Babb
reports the use of obscenityand bawdy
discourse during this time, including
stamping the word “penis” all over town
using stamps carved from potatoes. As
Holi gets closer, pranks such as pelting
passersby with water balloons become
more and more common. Such behavior
is ultimately harmless, but is still com-
pletely unacceptable in ordinary times
and symbolizes the coming cosmic dis-
solution. On the night of Holi, the bon-
fire is lit, symbolizing the destruction of
the old, and people may direct obsceni-
ties toward the fireas a vehicle for get-
ting rid of enmities from the previous
year. Mythologically, the bonfire comes
from the burning of the demon Holika,
who tries to trick her brother Prahlada
into being burned on a bonfire, but is
herself consumed by the flames.
The morning after the bonfire is the
high point of Holi, the “festival of colors.”
For weeks before Holi, the shops in the
markets display mounds of powders in
various colors, most commonly in vivid
greens, reds, and purple; the colors are
used as powder, or are mixed with water.
People play with the colored water using
syringes or balloons. In the gentlest type
of play, each person takes a small pinch
of colored powder and gently applies it
to the other person’s forehead. Needless
to say, the play with colors can often
become much rougher, with people
smearing and soaking each other with
colors, dyeing each other’s clothing in
multiple hues, and often staining the
skin for weeks afterward.Holi