Page:Growth of Asamiya Language.pdf/46

THE ORIGIN AND CROWTH OF THE ASAMIYA LANGUAGE middle of the year when average people exhaust their store of grain and have not much to eat and enjoy. It is now on the verge of extine- tion. The Sion Bihu is already extinct, probably as it fell in the middle of the plantation season, the busiest period of the agricultural people. Even after the beginning of the present century it survived as a festival in which the farmers used to enjoy Wapih, a unique preparation of rice-flour of which the dough is passed through a sleve to boiling water" where it is cooked, and has the appearance of boiled rice of bigger size. An interpretation of the Bihus is sometimes given in terms of Vedic practices. "In Vedic literature vivent is the middle day in the sattra or sacrificial session of a year's duration. It literally means equi notial day (Ath. XI, 7, 15). On that day Goulmayan rite is performed (At. Br. iv, 18, 6)." It is of course true that the last day of Caitra is called, Catar Bihu or Garu Bihu (cow.equinox festival) in which the cattle are ceremonially bathed in the morning and jdg Gajna) pre- pared for them in the afternoon, they are tied in the evening with new ropes made of ten plants, fed with pit (pistake, cakes) specially pre- pared for them. Cows, generally adored by the Aryan population, are treated with due deference on that day, and abusing or beating specially on that day is strictly forbidden. So the Vedic gaplayan (cow equinox festival) may certainly claim some influence on the Catar Bih which precedes the first day of Baisakh when the Bahig Bihu or Mänah Bihu (man-equinox, as opposed to cow-equinox) festival begins. "In the course of the above sacrificial session (sattra) the Mahivata crifice was performed by the Vedie Indians at the winter solstice... (R. 6, 16, 18)". "At the Mahavrata maidens dance round the fire". Although women have absolutely nothing to do with it, the Asamiya Megh Bihu (at winter solstice) is definitely connected with bonfire called Meja which may be further related to the wrongly alleged fire- worship of the Magions. Linguistie, social and religious evidences are surely there to show traces of very early Indo-Iranian relations of ancient Asar. "In the Aitareya Brahmana Atiratra sacrifice is enjoined as a part of the Akin Sattra (IV, 18, 4)...The first part begins at the autumnal equinox.... We are concerned here not with the identity of the customs, but simply with the early foundation of the Asamiya Bthus into which not only Vedle but even various later cultures may have been woven. Prohibition of widow marriage and prescription of child marriage were definitely of very late phases even in the Vedie religion, and happily we find no trace of them in the early composition of Aryan customs in Asam save and except among a small section of the people processing themselves to be votaries of neo-Vedie religion Kalitas, a rule, do not obey those practices while those who called themselves Kayasthas followed them for some time in the past, but since then not only Kayasthes but even Vedic Brahmans in Asam, probably all over India, have gradually got rid of them all right. Among other customs