The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.293

v2.c17.s1.293

In India the festival dates from Vedic times. There was then celebrated by the people a vernal feast of which jokes and jibes and hilarity and extravagance formed the most prominent characteristics. As, however, in the North-Western frontier of India where the Vedic people lived, spring did not come until late, the time for it was the full-moon of Caitra or a month later. In Bengal with early Spring this would not do and so the feast had to be removed a month back and it falls now on the full-moon of Phâlguna⁶⁹. Rejoicings for the return of genial weather were its chief objects and singing, music, joking and feasting were its principal components. Swinging seated on a cradle is a favourite amusement of Indian females. There is scarcely a respectable and comfortable homestead, Hindu or Muhammadan, in Northern India where there is not a swing for the recreation of the ladies ; and, as women in olden times freely mixed with men in all public rejoicings, swings were found important elements in the paraphernalia of public feasts ; and to this day three festivals—the Dola, the Phula Dola and the Jhulana—are every year celebrated to mark the partiality of the people for that recreation. Forty years ago, there was not a good garden in the suburbs of Calcutta which had not its swing and only lately English influence has set it aside. In the North-West, however, it still retains its hold. A special Mode or tune was devised for singing, dancing and swinging, and to this day it bears the name of Hiṇḍolâ, or the swinging tune. Fun and frolic in primitive times, moreover, often took the form of practical jokes and the throwing of red powder (*holi*, *phalgu* or *ābir*) on friends, was the form in which the jokes seemed to have been indulged. Thus the characteristics of the Dola Yâtrâ are the swing and the red powder and the feast is often called ‘the feast of red powder’.