Pohela Boishakh in Bangladeshi Culture

‘Pohela Boishakh’ is the 1st day of the year in Bengali calendar. This is also the New Year for parts of India, Sri Lanka and a few other South East Asian countries. In Bangladesh, ‘Pohela Boishakh’ connects citizens in common joy irrespective of faith and regional differences. This new-year began through the Mughal Empire when farming taxes were collected based on the Hijri which is a lunar date book that didn’t agree with the crop thereby causing hardship among farmers who had to pay taxes out of period. According to the Fatehullah Shirazi (A renowned scholar and astronomer), formulated the Bengali year on the basis of the Hijri lunar and Hindu solar calendars.

The new farming year was opening introduced on 10th or 11th March 1584, but it was dated from Akbar's ascension to the throne in 1556. Then the New Year became identified as “Bangla Year”, which usually known as “Bonggabdo”. Celebrations of Pohela Boishakh started from Akbar's reign (1556). It was usual to clear up all dues on the last day of the Bengali Year (last day of Choitro). On the next day of the New Year (Pohela Boishakh), landlords would keep amused their tenants with sweets. The major event of the day was to open a new book of accounts or new accounts. Which normally known as “Halkhata”.

Celebration of Pohela Boishakh at Ramna Park

This is still done in a lot of saleable shops and markets. ‘Pohela Boishakh’ in Bangladesh is closely linked with rustic Bengal but the festivity has spread to the cities. Fairs and festivals are held with farming products and handicrafts for auction while songs and dances provide amusement to all. The largest fair is held in Dhaka where generally 100,000 people gather together to welcome the new-year. As mentioned former, the festivity of Bengali New Year, ‘Pohela Boishakh’ takes place both in West Bengal and Bangladesh.

But, ‘Pohela Boishakh’ in Bangladesh didn’t receive a joint form until 1965. During the growing association for a self-governing state from Pakistan that began by the end of the 1940s and continued until the sovereignty in 1971, the former Pakistani Government implemented a lot of policies that were somewhat modified versions of the British “Split and Law” principle. In additional words, those policies were destined to differentiate a Bengali Muslim from others and keep away from a strong, joint movement for self-government. As a continuance to such steps, the Pakistani administration banned poems by the Noble winning Bengali writer, Shree Rabindranath Tagore. Then, Chhayanaut, the only main Fine Arts institution of the time intended their artistic show for Pohela Boishakh to be a means of complaint.

Preparation for Monghal Sobhajatra in Pohela Boishakh

Pohela Boishakh marks the begin day of the farming season. Generally on Pohela Boishakh, people bath early in the morning and dress in well clothes. Most of women and girls wear “Sari”, which color is mixed up with red and white and beautify themselves with Churi, Ful and Tip and most of the man and boys dress in “Panjabi”, Pajama, Lungi, Dhuti and Kurta, which color is also varied up with red and white. They spend much of the day visiting relatives, friends and neighbors and going to fair. Particular foods are prepared to amuse guests. Lots of townspeople begin the day with the conventional breakfast of “Panta Bhat” (rice soaked in water), green chilies, onion and fried Hilsa fish.

Traditional food of Pohela Boishakh- Panta Bhat

This is one country festival that has become extremely big in the cities, particularly in Dhaka and Chittagong. Different organizations brought out processions and prearranged musical programmes, fairs and cake festivals to blot the day. Students of the Institute of Fine Arts of Dhaka University took out customary “Mangal Shobhajatra” in the morning with thousands of revelers wearing chequered masks. The colorful parade was decorated with paper sculptures of a gigantic tiger, Doyel (magpie robin) which is the national bird, a rooster and a long snake and masks of owl, tiger and fish. Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) affirmed off-limit to all vehicles roads stretching from Matshya Bhaban to Shahbagh and Doyel Chattar to TSC of the Dhaka University.

A sum of 24 CCTV cameras would be set up across the city. Members of the law agencies will deal out drinking water among public at Ramna Park during the programme and Fire Brigade and ambulance will also be in position. Safety measures would also be taken at the cinema halls and ambassadorial zone. Different socio-cultural organizations have chalked out intricate programmes to rejoice the day. Bangla Academy and Nazrul Institute arrange separate programmes to welcome the Bengali New Year. The Liberation War Museum will stage a variety of programmes that contain dance, ‘puthi-path’ and folk songs at 10:00am on the day. Although the ceremony of Pohela Boishakh has become admired in the urban areas, but New Year's revels are closely linked with rustic life in Bengal.

Mongal Sobhajatra in Pohela Boishakh

Generally on the day the whole thing is scrubbed and cleaned. People bathe early in the morning and dress in fine clothes and then go to visit relatives, friends and neighbors. Special foods are prepared to entertain guests. Baishakhi fairs are arranged in lots of parts of the country. Various agricultural products, toys, traditional handicrafts, cosmetics as well as a variety of kinds of food and sweets are sold at these fairs. The fairs also offer entertainment, with singers and dancers staging Jatra, Kavigan, Palagan, Jarigan, Gazirgan, Gambhiragan and Alkaap gan. They present folk songs as well as Baul, Marfati, Murshidi and Bhatiali songs. Narrative plays like Yusuf-Zulekha, Laily-Majnu and Radha-Krishna are staged.

Among additional attractions of these fairs are puppet shows and merry-go-rounds for kids. Many old festivals linked with New Year's Day have left, while new festivals have been additional. With the elimination of the zamindari system, the punya linked with the closing of land revenue accounts has moved out. Kite flying in Dhaka and bull racing in Munshiganj used to be extremely colorful events. Another well-liked village games and sports were horse races, bullfights, flying pigeons, cockfights and boat racing. Some festivals, however, carry on to be observed; for instance, bali (wrestling) in Chittagong and gambhira in Rajshahi are still accepted events.

Fair in Pohela Boishakh

Nowadays, Pohela Boishakh festivity is not only in Bangladesh but it celebrates in lots of countries in Asia. However, Bangladesh Boishakhi carnival celebrates in Australia, Sweden and UK. Though, in UK, Boishakhi festivity takes place on street as Boishakhi Carnival which is the biggest Asian carnival in Europe. On the other hand, Bangladeshi society in Sweden rejoice this festival with full of pleasure. They bring out this festival road march and move to dissimilar street. Obviously, in Australia, the Boshakhi rejoice in lots of cities including Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra etc. Though, at Sydney there is an Olympic Park where the Boshakhi fair takes position where Bangladeshi sell Bangladeshi food to restricted Australian people to exchange civilization.

At the ending, Pohela Boishakhi takes position in various Arab countries through fair and food festivity. Now, Pohela Boishakh celebrations also blot a day of cultural unity without difference between class and religious affiliations. Of the chief holidays celebrated in Bangladesh, only Pohela Boishakh comes with no any preexisting expectations (precise religious individuality, culture of gift-giving etc.). Unlike holidays like Eid ul-Fitr, where dressing up in plentiful clothes has become a standard, or Christmas where exchanging gifts has become an essential fraction of the holiday, Pohela Boishakh is really about celebrating the simpler, country roots of the Bengal. As a result, more people can contribute in the festivities jointly without the load of having to make known one's class, faith or economic ability.

Arabian worship culture before Islam

The vast culture of South Arabia was slight known to the Arabs of Muhammad's time. Although any of the Arab tribes of Muhammad's day still had a custom that they had lived in South Arabia previous to taking to the desert when the aged civilization declined. Some tribes retained a reminiscence of being settled there before conditions worsened, apparently connected with the Marib dam satisfied and a return to nomadic life. Restorations were identifying to have been carried out in 450 and 542 which put a final date on the termination. The South Arabians previous to Islam were polytheists and revered a great number of deities.

Most of these were astral in idea but the meaning of only a few is known. It was fundamentally a planetary system in which the moon as a male deity prevailed. This, joint with the use of a star calendar by the agriculturists of convinced parts, chiefly in the Hadramaut, indicates that there was an early on reverence for the nighttime sky. In the middle of the South Arabians the worship of the moon sustained, and it is almost certain that their religious calendar was also astral and that their years were calculated by the place of the moon. The national divinity of each of the kingdoms or states was the Moon-god recognized by various names- Ilumquh by the Sabaeans, Amm and Anbay by the Qatabanians, Sin by the Hadramis and Wadd (love) by the Minaeans. The sun-goddess was the moon's companion; she was maybe best known in South Arabia as Dhat Hamym, she who sends forth burly rays of benevolence.

Worship to moon of a Arabian

 One more leading deity was the male god recognized as Athtar corresponding to Phoenician Astarte. Pritchard claims their pantheon incorporated the moon god Sin and so on, Shams (Shamash) and Athtar or Astarte as in the Semitic trinity, though it would emerge that the sun was female as the Canaanite Shapash who figures in Ugarit legend next to Athtar. The earliest temple acknowledged is the Mahram Bilquis or Harem of the Queen of Sheba, before called the Awwam the temple of the Moon God 'Ilumquh which dates from about 700 BC, even though its lower levels may be substantially elder. Sabean moon adoration extended through a long period of time to around 400 AD when it was overtaken is descendent Judaism and Christianity around a century before Muhammad. Bilquis was the Queen of the Sabeans in Solomons period. Pre-Islamic poetry describes Solomon as a king of worldwide kingdom of men; djinn and winds etc. nine angels stand previous to him. He built the fortress al-Ablaq near Taima. A second well-known Arab culture had sprung up from Southern Sinai around 600 BC and from around 400 BC in the land of the Edo mites in Jordan.

The Nabateans had a close up relationship with the Edo mites as they each claim a female line of drop from Ishmael, through Bashemath one of the three wives of Esau and her sister Nabaioth respectively, conditions favorable to addition. This also gave the Edo mites descent from Isaac during Esau. The son of Esau and Bashemath was Rule the Midianite father in Law of Moses. The Nabateans had two major gods in their pantheon, and a whole range of djinns, personal gods and spirits alike to angels. These deities were Dhu Shara, or Duchares and al-Uzza. Duchares means Lady of Shera, a local mountain and thunder god who was worshipped at a astound high place as a block of stone frequently squared, just as Hermes was the four-square divinity. Suidas in the tenth century AD described it as’cubic’ black granite of dimension 4x2x1.

King Solomon and Queen of Sheba

Every deity male and female was represented as stones or god-blocks. Al-Uzza was a deity of springs and water, as befits a fruitfulness goddess, and as such she would have been reverenced in Petra with exacting devotion. Manathu was the supporter goddess of Petra, being Fortuna having a similar position to Semitic Gad. As Moon Goddess Tyche she was also luck holding a cornucopia of overflowing fruit. However agricultural resolution brought changes and the Greek period produced a mixture culture. Al-Uzza became identified with Atargatis-Aphrodite and Duchares with Dionysus. Freezes including grape vines are prominent, consistent with Dionysian rites, which Browning concedes may have become the pornographic pop concerts which came to humiliate the once-glorious sect of Dionysos.

Bar-Hebraeus quoted Psalm 12:8 of Nabatean women the evil walk on each side while vileness is exhalted among the sons of men. The range and nature of the temples supports both males and females being worshippers of the cults. Women played a important role in Nabatean society. Aretas IV was on denomination with Shaqilat I, while Malichus II was alongside Shaqilat II. Married women could bequeath and hold property and descent was sometimes traced through the motherly line. Pagan temples, whether inside or outside the Nabataean kingdom were devoted to both Dushara and Allat or to localized equivalents of Zues Hadad and Atargatis. Indeed in universal, Atargatis seems to have outranked her companion by far. Pre-Islamic worship of the goddess seems to be principally associated with Al’Lat, which just means 'goddess'. She is a triple goddess, alike to the Greek astral deity Kore/Demeter/Hecate.

Three Goddess of Arabia before Islam

Every aspect of this trinity corresponds to a stage of the moon. In the same way Al’Lat has three names recognized to the start- Q're, the semi-circular moon or the maiden; Al’Uzza, literally ‘the strong one’ who is the full moon and the mother aspect; then Al'Menat, the waning but wise goddess of fate, prediction and divination. Islamic tradition continue to recognize these three but labels them 'daughters of Allah', or banat al-Llah, firmly associating al-Llah as a pre-Islamic divinity paired with the three forms of the Goddess. In Arabian archaeology a huge number of inscriptions on rocks, tablets and walls, have pointed to the adoration of a family of four; one male and his three ‘daughters’ or goddesses.

Those three goddesses are sometimes engraved jointly with Allah, represented by a semi-circular moon above them. But Allah was the ‘Lord of the Kaaba… Lord of Manat, al-Lat, and al-Uzza… and even as Lord of Sirius’. His ‘daughters’ were his associates, helpers and were themselves worshipped, after the way of ancient Babylonian customs and symbolized by astronomical symbols. Each family in Mecca had at home an idol which they worshiped. Whenever one of them purposed to set out on a trip, his last act previous to leaving the house would be to touch the idol in hope of an auspicious journey; and on his return, the first thing he would do was to feel it again in gratitude for a propitious come back.

God of time- Manat

The Arabs fervently loved of worshiping idols. Some of them took unto themselves a holy place approximately which they centered their adoration, while others adopted an idol to which they offered their high regard. The person who was powerless to build himself a temple or adopt an idol would upright a stone in front of the Sacred House or in front of any other temple which he might favor and then circumambulate it in the same mode in which he would circumambulate the Sacred House. The Arabs called these stones baetyls. The act of circumambulating them they called circumrotation. Whenever a tourist stopped at a place or station in order to rest or spend the nighttime, he would select for himself four stones, choose out the finest among them and adopt it as his god, and utilize the remaining three as supports for his cooking-pot.

On his going away he would leave them behind and would do the similar on his other stops. The Arabs were wont to offer sacrifices previous to all these idols, baetyls and stones. Nevertheless they were aware of the fineness and superiority of the Ka’bah, to which they went on pilgrimage and visitation. What they did on their travels was maintenance of what they did at the Ka’bah, since of their devotion to it. Another relevant deity, because of his connection to Sin, or Nannar, the God of Abraham is Yarikh the moon god. The illuminator of myriads, lamp of heaven, perhaps also the semi-circular moon and lord of the sicle and thereby the father of the Kotharat. He is supporter of the city Qart-Abilim. Like Sin, he is a devoted aristocrat. After sunset he embraces Nikkal-and-Ib and becomes strong-minded to marry her. He refuses the daughters of Baal and presents a lavish bride price to Nikkal-and-Ib's relatives and the two are get married. Baal-Hadad's creatures eat greedily his handmaidens, so he sends them to El. El tells them to go into the wilds and there birth horned buffalo, which will sidetrack Baal-Hadad.

Jewish in Arabia before Islam

Beginning the 4th century AD, Christian bishops made distinguished conversions of the Kings of Himyar, Aksum and of Ethiopia generally. Narjan, an ancient pagan pilgrimage mark in a productive valley on the trade route became a Christian stranglehold. Medina became a centre of Jewish authority. Christianity and Judaism entered into competition in Arabia, confident by the Persians. In 522, King Dhu Nawas Yusaf "Lord of Curls" became the end selected Himyar king, descendent of a Jewish hero, who made war on the Christians. He offered the nation of Naryan the option of Jewry or death. When they refused he burned them every one in a huge channel. In response the Ethiopians overcame them and Abraha made San'a a Christian pilgrimage top which rivaled Mecca. This led to an expeditionary strength of Christians to attempt to destroy the Ka’aba. In turn Persia invaded and for a short time the country became a Persian satrapy. This puzzled situation laid the seeds for the appearance of Islam.