The Rakshabandhan and Jâyî Festivals.
We have already noticed the use of the knotted cord or string as an amulet. On the full moon of Sâwan is held the Salono or Rakshabandhan festival, when women tie these amulets round the wrists of their friends. Connected with this is what is known as the barley feast, the Jâyî or Jawâra of Upper India, and the Bhujariya of the Central Provinces. It is supposed to be connected in some way with the famous story of Alha and Udal, which forms the subject of a very popular local epic. They were Râjputs of the Banâphar clan, and led the Chandels in their famous campaign against the Râhtaurs of Kanauj, which immediately preceded, and in fact led up to, the Muhammadan conquest of Northern India.[14]
In connection with this simple rural feast, a most elaborate ritual has been prescribed under Brâhmanical influence, but all that is usually done is that on the seventh day of the light half of Sâwan, grains of barley are sown in a pot of manure, and spring up so rapidly that by the end of the month the vessel is full of long, yellowish-green stalks. On the first day of the next month, Bhâdon, the women and girls take these out, throw the earth and manure into water, and distribute the plants to their male friends, who bind them in their turbans and about their dress.[15]
We have already come across an instance of a similar practice among the Kharwârs at the Karama festival, and numerous examples of the same have been collected by Mr. Frazer.[16] Thus, “in various parts of Italy and all over Sicily it is still customary to put plants in water or in earth on the Eve of St. John, and from the manner in which they are found to be blooming or faded on St. John’s Day omens are drawn, especially as to fortune in love. In Prussia two hundred years ago the farmers used to send out their servants, especially their maids, to gather St. John’s wort on Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day. When they had fetched it, the farmer took as many plants as there were persons and stuck them on the wall or between the beams; and it was thought that the person whose plant did not bloom would soon fall sick or die. The rest of the plants were tied in a bundle, fastened to the end of a pole, and set up at the gate or wherever the corn would be brought in at the next harvest. This bundle was called Kupole, the ceremony was known as Kupole’s festival, and at it the farmer prayed for a good crop of hay, etc.”
We have the same idea in the English rural custom of “wearing the rose.” There can be no reasonable doubt that all these rites were intended to propitiate the spirit of vegetation and promote the germination and growth of the next crop.[17]