New Year - is it the National Festival in Sri Lanka?

By W.T.A. Leslie Fernando

The Sinhala and Tamil New Year is an annual event that stimulates the society, enlivens the nation and foster national consciousness in Sri Lanka. Earlier this festival was celebrated mainly by the Buddhists and the Hindus. Now Christians too participate in New Year celebrations and in recent times it has become almost a nationwide festival.

Both New Year and Easter come in the same time of the year. In some years New Year falls during or before the Holy Week, where Christians commemorate the Passion of Christ in a penitential atmosphere. In that event Christians join the celebrations after the Holy Week.

The ‘cuckoo’ call of the Koha during the harvesting time of Maha - the major rice crop in Sri Lanka - reminds that the New Year is approaching. And the beautiful Erabodu flowers begin to blossom. The bounties of farmers are filling. Nature brings the message and people prepare for the New Year celebrated all over the country in a grand scale.

New Year observances commence with the sun entering the austerism of Aries. The rituals begin with the observance of ‘Nonagathe’, where people stop all work and go to temples for religious observances.

The festivities begin with the lighting of the hearth at the auspicious time. The whole family clad in new clothes in the lucky colour eats together the first meal also at the auspicious time. They next exchange gifts and are pardoned by elders for their lapses in the previous year.

The celebrations take group form when the villagers get together and play traditional games. Womenfolk participate in indoor games or play raban. The festival atmosphere lasts for a number of days and during this time they visit relations and friends with kavum, kokis, and other sweet meats and various gifts.

The festivities end with the anointing of the oil ceremony where at the auspicious time, an elder anoints the young with oil on the head invoking the blessings of gods. There are also auspicious times to go for work and watch the new moon.

The Sinhalese have celebrated the New Year from time immemorial. Robert Knox writes that during his time, New Year was the major festival of the Sinhalese and it was celebrated in March.

Festivities similar to our New Year are found in this season in India, Thailand, Mynammar (Burma), Japan, Taiwan and China. There are some who want to confine New Year within a religious spectrum. Even no less a person than Prof J. B. Dissanayake opines that the New Year festival should be called Buddhist and Hindu New Year as it is observed mainly by the Buddhists and the Hindus in our country.

New Year is not a Buddhist festival though the Buddhists go to the temple at the Nonagathe time. Strictly speaking there is no place for the auspicious times in the Buddhist doctrine. The Buddha has discarded the auspicious times saying:

“Nakkathan pathimeneththan atthobalan upachchaga Aththo Aththassa nakaththan, kin karissathi tharaka”

(The fool who procrastinates what is to be done waiting for an auspicious time will not achieve the objective. If you could achieve your objective, that itself is auspicious. What could the stars in the sky do?)

The major Buddhist festivals in Sri Lanka are Vesak, Poson and Esala. Besides, Buddhist festivals are held on Poya days based on Lunar observances. New Year - also called Suriya Mangallaya (Feast of the Sun) - is a solar festival commencing with the entry of the sun to the zodiac of Aries.

The New Year cannot be classified as a Hindu festival as well. It is not celebrated all over the Hindu world. It is a national festival of Tamils and some others in South India. The Andhras, Kannadigas and Malayalis though Hindus do not observe it.

Those Hindus in North India and the Himalayan region have their own dates for the New Year. According to Dr. P. Poolagasinghan it is a misnomer to call it as Hindu New Year.

Dr. Sooriya Gunasekera explains that in 1886 when the Holiday Bill was taken for debate in the legislative Council, one member has suggested since Vesak had been declared a holiday for Buddhists, New Year should be allotted a holiday for Hindus.

Although the suggestion was not approved, the relevant gazette notification had erroneously described it as ‘Sinhala and Hindu New Year’ and it was so continued. In the meantime there are some Catholics including some clergy who want to celebrate Easter and New Year together as the theme of renewal found in New Year is also there in the Easter vigil and ceremonies.

There are others who see remote similarities between Passover rituals and New Year celebrations and try to connect New Year with the Passover. The Jews were slaves of Egypt for over 400 years. At last they freed themselves under Moses and crossed over to Judea, which was called the ‘Promised Land’. The Jews celebrated this event called the Passover or the Feast of the Unleavened Bread.

At the Passover, like our Nonagathe, they fasted for some time before they lit the fire, sacrificed a lamb and took the meal. Christ Himself with His disciples assembled in a house to eat the Passover when He was taken a prisoner.

However Passover observances has a different history. In the ancient world Egyptians worshipped a god called ‘Osiris’ representing the changes of nature in spring as his death and resurrection. Worship of Osiris had its origin among the Mediterranean tribes and Semitic people including Jews worshipped Osiris for life-giving power to nature.

There were ancient tribes in Asia who worshipped sun and nature. They believed when everything awakened with the arrival of spring a new deity took charge of nature. All the festivals during the New Year season could be traced to this concept.

The worship of Osiris by the Egyptians, the idea of renewal found in the Passover, Easter and New Year seem to have germinated from the belief that the changes in nature during the season were effected by the passing away of one deity and arrival of another.

There is a belief both in India and in Sri Lanka that at the New Year, a new deity called Avurudu Kumaraya took charge of nature. In some parts of Sri Lanka, they make an altar with tender coconut palms for the deity. In other areas especially in the South a lamp is lit for the Avurudu Kumaraya. In some societies, worship of the new deity and the New Year is associated with the harvesting ceremonies.

The pivot of Christianity is the death and resurrection of Christ. As St. Paul puts it: “If there is no resurrection of Christ, the Christian faith would be in vain”. By no means should Easter be diluted, eclipsed, undermined or overshadowed by combining it with the New Year. It is the worst damage that could be done to Easter, the greatest festival of Christians.

Although Christmas is celebrated all over the world with so much glamour and splendour, it was not there among the earliest festivals of Christians. But all throughout history Easter has been celebrated by the Christians. In the 4th century when the Roman Empire embraced Christianity, Christmas began to be celebrated on the day of the Roman feast of the sun.

As a result the grandeur, pageantry and revelry of the worship of sun and Saturnila festival of Romans have overtaken the spiritual aspects of Christmas and it is celebrated in a manner quite contrary to the humble birth of Christ in a stable. If Easter and New Year were to be celebrated together, New Year rituals would undermine Easter.

There is no meaning to give suddenly a Christian colouring to a festival not earlier celebrated by the Christians. In fact a move by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Sri Lanka to change the dates of Easter in our country when the New Year falls in the Holy Week was very correctly rejected by the Holy See in the Vatican.

Although the Christians are less than seven percent of the population in Sri Lanka, no other religious festival in our country is celebrated with so much sophistication and extravagance as Christmas. Likewise if New Year is made a Christian festival, there is every likelihood for glamour and lurid entertainment to overshadow serene traditions and customs of the New Year.

There is now a general consensus in Sri Lanka to treat New Year as a national festival, though it is intermingled with Buddhist and Hindu religious observances. It is not fair by other communities to combine it with Easter and give a religious colouring to the New Year so as to make it a Christian festival.

National festival

Since New Year is not a religious festival confined exclusively to a particular faith, it could be celebrated by all the religious and ethnic groups in Sri Lanka as a common national festival. Its unique features could be made use of to promote friendship and mutual understanding among all.

Catholics too could join with others to celebrate New Year as a common national festival devoid of auspicious times. We could have a special Mass for New Year as it is done in some churches. It is heartening to see in recent times Christians joining New Year celebrations and taking part in traditional games and sports.

New Year comes at a time ideal for a national festival in our country. Rains come after a spell of hot and dry weather. Fresh leaves appear on trees and there is greenery everywhere. Flowers bloom, vegetables and fruits are in plenty and birds. Harvesting is over, bounties full and people have the time to celebrate. It is during this time of the year that many marriages take place in villages.

New Year is a festival where people of all ethnic and religious groups, Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and others in Sri Lanka could and should celebrate as a common national festival to foster national unity in our country.

(The writer is a former High Court Judge and Vice-President of the Newman Society Alumni Association)