Festivals and jataras · Telugu History

Festivals mark the Telugu year, and jataras (great fairs held at a shrine) draw people from whole districts. This page follows them mainly through one record: the survey of fairs and festivals made for the Census of 1961.¹ Its volumes for the Telangana districts tell what people did, village by village, at a time when many old customs were fading.¹ For older accounts from the coastal and Rayalaseema districts, see Daily life & festivals.

How the record was made

The Census officers of Andhra Pradesh wanted a record of every fair and festival in every village of the state.¹ They sent a printed questionnaire with the Census enumerators, who were mostly village school teachers.¹ Collectors, police officers and temple boards sent their own lists.¹ About 15,000 forms came back filled.¹

The festival year

The Warangal volume describes the common festivals of the district one by one, in the order of the Telugu year.²

Ugadi. The Telugu New Year’s Day was kept by every Hindu, rich or poor.² People believed that what happened on that day set the course of the whole year.² So they took care to be happy, and to keep children from crying.² Houses were whitewashed and everyone tried to wear new clothes.² Everyone tasted the Ugadi pachchadi, made of new tamarind, jaggery and neem flowers.² The census explains the bitter flowers and sweet jaggery as a lesson that life mixes sorrow and joy.² In the evening the village priest read the new almanac aloud at the village platform.³ In Warangal the farmers did not begin ploughing at Ugadi, as in Kurnool. They began on the full moon of Jyeshtha, at the sowing festival.³

Dasara. Dasara lasted ten days.⁴ On the last day people went to the sami tree with music, worshipped it, and gave its leaves to friends and elders with good wishes.⁵ On the ninth day farmers worshipped their ploughs, and carpenters and barbers their tools. By 1961 people also washed and garlanded their motor vehicles.⁵ The census notes that for the poor and the labouring classes the nine nights were “no period of festival at all”.⁵

Deepavali. In Warangal district, the census says, Deepavali was the most important festival of all, for rich and poor alike.⁶ Sons-in-law and daughters were invited home.⁶ Girls and women waved lighted wicks before every man of the family and claimed gifts, with much bargaining and laughter.⁶ At night, trained men whirled burning torches to draw lines of fire in the dark.⁶

Sankranti. Sankranti fell from 13 to 15 January.⁷ Its three days were Bhogi, Sankranti and Kanuma, which villagers called the cattle festival.⁷ On the third day cows and bullocks were washed, their horns painted, and bells tied on. Some were taken to the temples with drums.⁷

Kamadahanam and Holi. In Warangal these two were kept together.⁸ For the full moon a pit was dug in the street, and a picture of Kama, the god of love, was taken round and burnt in the fire.⁹ Half-burnt sticks were taken home to light the lamps.⁹ In Hyderabad, the district handbook says, most Muslims joined their Hindu neighbours at Holi under the Qutb Shahis and the Nizams, and still did so in part.¹⁰

Muharram. In the villages Muharram went by the name of the Peerla festival.¹¹ The census found that Hindus and Muslims kept it together. In many villages with few Muslims it was celebrated on a grand scale with Hindu patronage.¹¹ For the older history of Muharram in Hyderabad, see Daily life & festivals.

Bathukamma

The census describes Bathukamma as a festival of nine days, from the first to the ninth day of the bright half of Aswayuja, the days of Dasara.¹²⁴ Every Hindu family made a “Bathukamma”: a great heap of many kinds of flowers on a plate or tray.⁴ Women danced round it in a circle, singing the story of Bathukamma.⁴ On the ninth day the largest heaps were carried in procession and floated on a river, tank or well.⁴

The census tells the story that the songs give. Bathukamma was a young wife who came home for the festival. Her brother killed her in a forest because his jealous wife told him to.¹²⁴ She grew on her grave as a flowering tree, and her voice from the tree told her husband and mother the truth.⁴ In some families, the census adds, Bathukamma was preceded by the Baddemma festival.⁴

The festival is older than the census.¹³ In 1920 Siraj ul Hassan described how Komati women in Hyderabad State worshipped “Badakamma” in the month of Aswin. It was an image of the goddess Gauri set on a heap of flowers. Married women danced round it with linked arms and threw it into a stream or tank.¹³

Mikkilineni Radhakrishna Murthy describes the songs. Married daughters were brought home, and they sang of waiting for their brothers to fetch them.¹⁴ In his view the Bathukamma songs grew out of the songs women sang while weeding the fields. The weeding movements became the clapping of the dance.¹⁵ During the Telangana armed struggle, he adds, women sang of the fighters in Bathukamma tunes.¹⁵

Bonalu and the village goddesses

The census defines bonalu as cooked rice carried on the head in earthen pots, decorated with ash, turmeric and vermilion, and taken to the goddess with music.¹⁶ In one forest village of Warangal district, the Sugalis and Koyas offered them every year to Mutyalamma in Sravana (July–August), and a potter served as priest.¹⁶

Mikkilineni writes that Telangana villages offer bonalu to goddesses such as Mutyalamma, Poleramma, Ankalamma, Maisamma, Pochamma and Yellamma. Potters and Gollas act as their priests.¹⁷ The same pots are called garige buddi in Rayalaseema and garagalu in the coastal districts.¹⁷ The carriers go from house to house with pots wreathed in neem leaves, and every house puts in some curd-rice. As the drums beat, the carriers become possessed and dance.¹⁸

In the city, the 1961 handbook of Hyderabad names the Mahankali jatara at Secunderabad as an important Hindu festival. It lasted a fortnight in Ashadha (June–July), from the first to the third Sunday.¹⁹ The image was said to have been brought from Ujjain by soldiers, so the goddess was called Ujjaini Mahankali. Thousands came, and a fair with dances and dramas was held.¹⁹

The great jataras

Medaram. Medaram lies in the forests of Mulug taluk, and the census says the place was once an uninhabited thick forest.²⁰ Medaram was then a village of only 143 people, most of them Gonds.²⁰ The Gonds worshipped “Sadalamma or Sammakka Devata” on an earthen platform in a ten-acre compound. There was no image, only a small hut.²⁰

The jatara was held once in two years, for three days from the Wednesday before the full moon of Magha (January–February).²⁰ Devotees offered money, bells and silver ornaments, and sacrificed fowls, sheep and goats. The priest was a Gond with a hereditary right.²⁰ The census counted about 50,000 devotees. It thought the festival about a hundred years old.²⁰ Traders came from Warangal and Karimnagar, and the fair had a circus, magic shows, lotteries and plays.²⁰ The Gonds of the village also kept festivals of their own, for sowing, for the green fields, for their ancestors and for the harvest.²⁰

Komuravelli. At Komuravelli in Jangaon taluk, the god Mallanna sits in a cave with his two wives, Golla Kethamma and Balija Medala Devi.²¹ The census tells his legend: Shiva was born as Mallanna, the seventh son of Adi Reddy, and later took Kethamma, a Yadava girl, as his wife.²¹²² His festival ran on every Sunday from December to March. About two lakh Hindus came, for the place was thought to be Shiva’s home on earth.²² The fair had merry-go-rounds, cinemas, a circus and dances by devotees of Shiva.²²

Ramappa. At the Ramappa temple in Palampet, four to five thousand devotees gathered at Shivaratri. They bathed in the Ramappa lake and kept awake through the night.²³ A fair was held before the temple, with bhajans and plays.²³

Where the sources disagree

Where Bathukamma came from. The census gives a story: the festival keeps the memory of a young wife murdered by her brother.¹²⁴ Siraj ul Hassan (1920) describes the flower heap as an image of the goddess Gauri.¹³ Mikkilineni traces the songs and the clapping dance to the work songs of women weeding the fields.¹⁵

Census of India 1961, Vol. II: Andhra Pradesh, Part VII-B (18): Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), Preface, first page (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), Appendix I, p. 88 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), Appendix I, p. 89 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), Appendix I, p. 94 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), Appendix I, p. 95 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), Appendix I, p. 96 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), Appendix I, p. 97 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), Appendix I, p. 98 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), Appendix I, p. 99 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Census 1961: District Census Handbook, Hyderabad (1968), p. A99 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), Appendix I, p. 102 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), Appendix I, p. 93 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Syed Siraj ul Hassan, The Castes and Tribes of H.E.H. the Nizam’s Dominions, Vol. I (1920), p. 353 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Mikkilineni, Janapada Kalarupalu (1992), p. 399 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
Mikkilineni, Janapada Kalarupalu (1992), p. 723 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), p. 47 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Mikkilineni Radhakrishna Murthy, Teluguvari Janapada Kalarupalu (Hyderabad: Telugu University, 1992), p. 367 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Mikkilineni, Janapada Kalarupalu (1992), p. 368 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
Census of India 1961, Andhra Pradesh: District Census Handbook, Hyderabad District (1968), p. A98 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), p. 37 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), p. 73 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), p. 74 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Census 1961: Fairs and Festivals, Warangal District (1964), p. 35 (censusindia.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²