Why?
About 10,000 years ago, men had his lives blend with nature. He placed events around his life based on the nature and things which he was able to track, like climate, weather, seasons – he relied on nature to track time and based on that, he decided on when to start a work – predominantly agriculture and when to complete it. Until the next suitable time for agriculture, he had designed ways to keep him occupied, focus his attention on other areas, or sometimes get prepared for the next agricultural season.
To pass on this information to his next generation, in an attempt to give them a “ready-made recipe” to work with nature, he started having festivals. Festivals are those “time-tags” in his life which either marks a beginning of something or marks an end of something. It is this time, where he decides to plough the ground or care for his cattle or use the harvested items or save himself from the weather change. Basically he designed this to safe-guard himself and prepare for future.
Do we really understand?
Even though we follow a lot of festivals, I am not sure if we understand the real reason as to why this was started in the first place. We are now trying to decode the reason as to why men at ancient times started doing something and in that attempt, we are trying to find the possible benefits of something that is already happening – but it may be unclear if this was the primary reason as to why something is being done.
The reason being, the way of life changed leaps and bounds. Our life is far more safe and sophisticated compared to how men lived 10,000 years ago, and it is impossible to try to track his mindset back to why he has started doing something, when you have no clue on what he was going to at that period.
Conclusion?
Do we then conclude that celebrating all these are “waste of time” – or are we doing something which are completely irrelevant to what we are now?
Very good article which is an eye opener for many customs. Many are related to religion but few are beyond that as well. We need a open platform (mind) to think why/what should I do. Basic science, history, archeological evidences, old literates can help ua to understand the custom. Wherever this is helping our society we can continue and keep update them. Otherwise it's all waste of time, money and creating further complications!
ReplyDeleteKeep thinking/writing Siva😊. Well done
Practiced for a purpose, persist to pass on!
ReplyDeleteA quick question, a celebration is one way of uniting each other a relevance to continue?
Yes...can be - worked when we were far far away and message took long time to communicate...
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