Religion

Hinduism:

Thai Pongal - a thanksgiving ceremony

Thai Pongal is celebrated on the first day of the month Thai of the Tamil calendar. The day falls on January 15 in the Christian calendar.

Thus, Thai is the first month of the Tamil Almanac, and Pongal is a dish of sweet concoction of rice, moong dal, jaggery and milk.

This festival is celebrated by one and all as it is non-relevance to any particular religious faith. The whole Tamil population of the world celebrate it without any differences. Therefore it is widely known as “Tamil Thai Pongal” or the “Festival of the Tamils”.

The Tamil festival of Thai Pongal is a thanks giving ceremony in which the farmers celebrate the event to thank the spirits of nature spirit, the Sun and the farm animals for their assistance in providing a successful harvest.

The rest of the people celebrate the festival to pay their thanks to the farmers for the production of food.

Overall, it is a festival to encourage social cohesiveness and unite people by bringing them together in a common function. There are many songs about Thai Pongal and there is much Tamil literature about it.

Customs and celebrations

Thai Pongal generally includes customs and celebrations that are the expression of jubilation over life’s renewal.

On Thai Pongal, the family begins the day early. Every member of the family gets up early in the morning, bathes, puts on new clothes and gathers in the front of the garden (muttram) to cook the traditional Pongal (rice pudding).

The front garden is pre-prepared for this ceremonious cooking. A flat square pitch is made and decorated with kolam drawings, and it is exposed to the direct sun light. A fire wood hearth will be set up using three bricks. The cooking begins by putting a clay pot with water on the hearth.

A senior member of the family conduct the cooking and the rest of the family dutifully assists him or her or watches the event. When the water boils the rice is put into the pot - after a member the family ceremoniously puts three handful of rice first.

The other ingredients of this special dish are chakkarai (brown cane sugar) or katkandu (sugar candy), milk (cow’s milk or coconut milk), roasted green gram (payaru), raisins, cashew nuts and few pods of cardamom.

When the meal is ready it is first put on a banana leaf and the family pray for few minutes to thank the nature sprit, the sun and farmers.

Then the meal (Pongal) is served with fruits (banana and mango) among the family. Later it will be shared with neighbors, friends and relatives. Although every household makes the food, sharing each others ‘Pongal’ is one of the important features of the event.

Some Hindu scholars believe that the rice is ceremoniously cooked on the Thai Pongal day because of its importance as a potent symbol of auspiciousness and fertility. The evenings are spent attending cultural events or visiting relatives and friends.

Thanksgiving Day

The day of the Thai Pongal is devoted to thanksgiving to cattle. The farmers pay great attention to the animals which have ploughed the fields and drawn the carts throughout the year.

To show his gratitude for this invaluable service the animals are bathed, their horns are painted in red, blue, yellow and green. Their foreheads are smeared with turmeric and kumkum.

Their necks are adorned with colorful garlands. Pooja is offered to them and Pongal is given in plenty. This is called Mattu Pongal.

Meaning and significance

Thai Pongal is an occasion for family re-unions and get-together. Old enmities, personal animosities and rivalries are forgotten. Estrangements are healed and reconciliation effected.

Indeed, Thai Pongal is a festival of freedom, peace, unity and compassion crystallised in the last hymn on unity in the Indian spiritual text the Rig Veda. Thus, love and peace are the central theme of Thai Pongal.

A typical Thai Pongal day in Jaffna

Lalitha BRODIE

It’s Thai pongal time in the 1940s in Jaffna! Appah has come on leave from Colombo to celebrate this annual Hindu festival of thanksgiving. I join appah in a crowded bus ride to Jaffna town the previous day, to do the Pongal shopping.

How very true it is, that the joy of any festival begins with the purchase of the essentials for its celebration! We carefully select the new earthenware pot, (It is a bad omen if a pongal pot leaks or breaks during pongal!) with the ginner and saffron leaves to tie round adorning its neck, (Metal pots are used now) along with betel leaves, arecanuts, three different varieties of bananas, mangoes, sugar cane, jaggery, raisins, cashew nuts, camphor, fire crackers and a host of other things.

We rise early on Pongal morn, bathe, wear new clothes and start helping appah and ammah with the chores.

Ammah cleans and prepares the courtyard in front of our house and papa decorates and draws an artistic ‘kolam’ pattern on the cow-dunged ground with white flour (food for the ants!) with gaps on all four sides so that the Sun can enter to partake of the feast! The pot full of water ‘Nirai-kudam’ with its crown of mango leaves and coconut, regally sits on its plantain leaf and paddy padded throne.

A coconut is broken to signify the breakdown of our egos. The pongal pot filled to the brim with water and milk, is set on top of three fire bricks by appah and we start stoking the fire with coconut fronds.

The fire burns bright and quick, the milk rises, forms a white crown on top of the pot which tilts and flows out in the direction of the rising sun, now shining bright happily accepting our offering. Firecrackers are lit announcing the success of our pongal to neighbours.

Appah adds three handfuls of rice and lentils into the boiling pot and we all follow suit with our handfuls of rice. While the rice simmers ammah gets the coconut milk and jaggery solution ready while we chop the cashew nuts.

The mixed vegetable sambar curry is also bubbling by the side of the pongal pot. When the rice is done ammah adds the sweetened coconut milk, powdered cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon and last of all the ghee, roasted nuts and raising.

The aroma of the delicious pongal rice fills the air, as we arrange banana leaves on the ground and light the ceremonial oil lamps. We serve the pongal and sweetmeats on banana leaves placed on the ground, worship God, sing devotional hymns and offer our gratitude to the sun.

You must eat it to realise how divine the combination of the sweet rice and the spicy curries taste! We worship at the temple too and visit friends and relations to mutually exchange sweetmeats.

We participate in the village sports meet in the afternoon and enjoy the treat of a lovely cultural presentation by village maestros at night.

Though Hindus scattered in every part of the globe may not be able to make the traditional pongal offering to the sun in the courtyard in front of their houses, every Hindu will definitely observe this ceremony and offer thanks in a temple or inside their homes.

Islam:

Ahmadiyya Jama’at chief addresses Jalsa Salana

(Annual Convention) in Qadian, India:

In a speech telecast on last Monday 31st December, 2007, via satellite link His Holiness, Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad has addressed the Annual Convention of the Ahmadiyya Jama’at (Community) India in a live address from Fazl Mosque, London.

His Holiness spoke firstly of how the blessings of God Almighty continued to rain down upon the Ahmadiyya Jama’at. He said:

“Blessings from God Almighty have always showered the Ahmadiyya Jama’at and this is proof of the fact that Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian is the true Promised Messiah and Mahdi of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), who God Almighty appointed as the Reformer of the Age.

Until the time of the Promised Messiah, Qadian was an unknown village but today it is being watched, through the blessing of MTA International[1], by people throughout the world.

This is the result of a man who cut himself off from the world for the sake of God Almighty. But then God Himself spoke to him and said ‘Go out! And spread My message throughout the world! I am with you and those who believe in you.’

Those of us who consider ourselves part of the Ahmadiyya Jama’at are burdened with a great deal of responsibility. We must always keep at the forefront of our minds the two great reasons for which God Almighty sent the Promised Messiah.

Firstly to re-establish amongst the world the Oneness of God and secondly to re-establish love for God’s Creation.

These responsibilities may seem simple enough however, as the Promised Messiah has taught us, in practice they are much harder to achieve. Until we instil in our hearts a true love and fear of God Almighty we can never truly fulfil the duties we owe to Him and to His Creation.

His Holiness went on to speak about how the dawn of the New Year was upon us. He said:

“In Qadian the sun will be setting soon but through the blessings of God Almighty the sun will never set on the Ahmadiyya Jama’at. Further, a true Ahmadi will use each night not as a period just to rest his physical body but as a period to bring himself pure life as he bows down in prostration in front of God Almighty.

I pray that may the blessings of this Jalsa penetrate each and every person for ever. May the coming year, which will be the Centenary Year of Khilafat-e-Ahmadiyya, be a year filled with blessings and success for the Ahmadiyya Jama’at.”

Qadian is the birth-place of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Islam.

Significance of Islamic New Year

The Islamic New year starting from Muharram Ul Harram, will be observed from January 11. The Islamic New Year is a cultural event which some Muslims partake on the first day of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic calendar.

Muharram is also a month of mourning for the lovers and followers of Imam Hussain (AH). In this month, on the 10th day In 61 Hijra, Imam Hussain bin Ali (A.S.), the grandson of the Holy Prophet (S.A.W.), together with his family and friends, in all 72 men, embraced Shahadat in Karbala.

Since then, each year the followers through grief, sorrow and tears, keep alive the message, cause and purpose of the greatest martyrdom in human history.

Muslims believe that this is also the day that the first Caliph (Hazrat Abu Bakr RA) died. Muharram is held to be the most sacred of all the months, excluding Ramadan. Some Muslims fast during these days.

The tenth day of Muharram is called Yaumu-l ‘Ashurah, meaning, ‘the tenth day and it is a day of voluntary fasting. Muharram is also one of the four months declared sacred by Allah Almighty in the Holy Qur’an.

After Muhammad had preached publicly for more than a decade, the opposition to him reached such a high pitch that, fearful for their safety, he sent some of his adherents to Ethiopia, where the Christian ruler extended protection to them, the memory of which has been cherished by Muslims ever since.

But in Mecca the persecution worsened. Muhammad’s followers were harassed, abused, and even tortured. At last, therefore, Muhammad sent seventy of his followers off to the northern town of Yathrib, which was later to be renamed Medina (“The City”).

Later, in the early fall of 622, he learned of a plot to murder him and, with his closest friend, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, set off to join the emigrants. In Mecca the plotters arrived at Muhammad’s home to find that his cousin, ‘Ali, had taken his place in bed.

Enraged, the Meccans set a price on Muhammad’s head and set off in pursuit. Muhammad and Abu Bakr, however, had taken refuge in a cave where, as they hid from their pursuers, a spider spun its web across the cave’s mouth.

When they saw that the web was unbroken, the Meccans passed by and Muhammad and Abu Bakr went on to Medina, where they were joyously welcomed by a throng of Medinans as well as the Meccans who had gone ahead to prepare the way.

This was the Hijrah - anglicized as Hegira - usually, but inaccurately, translated as “Flight” - from which the Muslim era is dated. In fact, the Hijrah was not a flight but a carefully planned migration which marks not only a break in history - the beginning of the Islamic era- but also, for Muhammad and the Muslims, a new way of life. Henceforth, the organizational principle of the community was not to be mere blood kinship, but the greater brotherhood of all Muslims.

The men who accompanied Muhammad on the Hijrah were called the Muhajirun - “those that made the Hijrah” or the “Emigrants” - while those in Medina who became Muslims were called the Ansar or “Helpers.”

Muhammad was well acquainted with the situation in Medina. Earlier, before the Hijrah, the city had sent envoys to Mecca asking Muhammad to mediate a dispute between two powerful tribes. What the envoys saw and heard had impressed them and they had invited Muhammad to settle in Medina.

After the Hijrah, Muhammad’s exceptional qualities so impressed the Medinans that the rival tribes and their allies temporarily closed ranks as, on March 15, 624, Muhammad and his supporters moved against the pagans of Mecca. The first battle, which took place near Badr, now a small town southwest of Medina, had several important effects.

In the first place, the Muslim forces, outnumbered three to one, routed the Meccans. Secondly, the discipline displayed by the Muslims brought home to the Meccans, perhaps for the first time, the abilities of the man they had driven from their city.

Thirdly, one of the allied tribes which had pledged support to the Muslims in the Battle of Badr, but had then proved lukewarm when the fighting started, was expelled from Medina one month after the battle.

Those who claimed to be allies of the Muslims, but tacitly opposed them, were thus served warning: membership in the community imposed the obligation of total support. A year later the Meccans struck back.

Assembling an army of three thousand men, they met the Muslims at Uhud, a ridge outside Medina.

After an initial success the Muslims were driven back and the Prophet himself was wounded. As the Muslims were not completely defeated, the Meccans, with an army of ten thousand, attacked Medina again two years later but with quite different results.

At the Battle of the Trench, also known as the Battle of the Confederates, the Muslims scored a signal victory by introducing a new defense.

On the side of Medina from which attack was expected they dug a trench too deep for the Meccan cavalry to clear without exposing itself to the archers posted behind earthworks on the Medina side.

After an inconclusive siege, the Meccans were forced to retire. Thereafter Medina was entirely in the hands of the Muslims.

The Constitution of Medina - under which the clans accepting Muhammad as the Prophet of God formed an alliance, or federation - dates from this period.

It showed that the political consciousness of the Muslim community had reached an important point; its members defined themselves as a community separate from all others.

Ibn Ishaq, one of the earliest biographers of the Prophet, says it was at about this time that Muhammad sent letters to the rulers of the earth - the King of Persia, the Emperor of Byzantium, the Negus of Abyssinia, and the Governor of Egypt among others - inviting them to submit to Islam.

Nothing more fully illustrates the confidence of the small community, as its military power, despite the battle of the Trench, was still negligible. But its confidence was not misplaced.

Muhammad so effectively built up a series of alliances among the tribes his early years with the Bedouins must have stood him in good stead here- that by 628 he and fifteen hundred followers were able to demand access to the Ka’bah during negotiations with the Meccans.

This was a milestone in the history of the Muslims. Just a short time before, Muhammad had to leave the city of his birth in fear of his life. Now he was being treated by his former enemies as a leader in his own right.

A year later, in 629, he reentered and, in effect, conquered Mecca without bloodshed and in a spirit of tolerance which established an ideal for future conquests.

He also destroyed the idols in the Ka’bah, to put an end forever to pagan practices there. At the same time Muhammad won the allegiance of ‘Amr ibn al-’As, the future conqueror of Egypt, and Khalid ibn al-Walid, the future “Sword of God,” both of whom embraced Islam and joined Muhammad.

Their conversion was especially noteworthy because these men had been among Muhammad’s bitterest opponents only a short time before.

In one sense Muhammad’s return to Mecca was the climax of his mission. In 632, just three years later, he was suddenly taken ill and on June 8 of that year, with his third wife ‘Aishah in attendance, the Messenger of God “died with the heat of noon.” The death of Muhammad was a profound loss.

To his followers this simple man from Mecca was far more than a beloved friend, far more than a gifted administrator, far more than the revered leader who had forged a new state from clusters of warring tribes.

Muhammad was also the exemplar of the teachings he had brought them from God: the teachings of the Quran, which, for centuries, have guided the thought and action, the faith and conduct, of innumerable men and women, and which ushered in a distinctive era in the history of mankind.

His death, nevertheless, had little effect on the dynamic society he had created in Arabia, and no effect at all on his central mission: to transmit the Quran to the world. As Abu Bakr put it: “Whoever worshipped Muhammad, let him know that Muhammad is dead, but whoever worshipped God, let him know that God lives and dies not.”