ಹೋಲಿಕಾ ದಹನ | Holika Dahana

Holika Dahana is the bonfire lit on the evening of the full moon of Phalguna. The next morning is Holi, the day of colours. The two are a single festival over two days, and the fire comes first.

When it is lit

The tithi is Phalguna Shukla Purnima and the reference moment is pradosha, the hours just after sunset. The evening on which purnima is running during pradosha is the evening of the fire. This is the first condition, and by itself it would be simple.

The second condition is the one that moves the muhurta about. The fire is not lit during Bhadra, the karana Vishti, which is held to spoil beginnings. Purnima very often opens with Bhadra, because Vishti occupies a fixed slot in the rotation of karanas, and so the first half of the tithi is frequently barred. The rule then is to wait: the fire is lit after Bhadra ends, even if that means late in the night. Almanacs that print a Holika Dahana muhurta running from eleven at night to past midnight are not being eccentric, they are printing the interval that remains once Bhadra is out of the way.

Where Bhadra covers the whole night, some authorities allow the tail of Bhadra, the bhadra puchha, and forbid only its face, the bhadra mukha. Anudina gives the purnima window, the pradosha window and the Vishti karana separately, which is enough to see which of these an almanac has applied.

Kamana Habba

In Karnataka the bonfire is not Holika at all. It is Kamana Habba, and what burns on it is Kama. The story is the one every Kannada household tells: Shiva was in tapas after the death of Sati, the devas needed a son of his to lead their armies, and Kama was sent to break the meditation. He shot his flower arrow, Shiva woke, and the third eye reduced Kama to ash on the spot. Rati, his wife, was left to grieve, and Shiva relented so far as to restore him without a body. He is Ananga from then on, the bodiless one, present but unseen.

The effigy is made of wood and straw, sometimes with a painted face, and children go from house to house for weeks beforehand collecting firewood and small change for it. It is set up at a crossroads or in an open yard, and burnt at the appointed hour. In many places the women sing the Rati vilapa, Rati lamenting over the ashes, and the songs are the substance of the observance more than the puja is. The next morning the ash is smeared on the forehead, and coloured water is thrown.

The northern story and what goes into the fire

Elsewhere the same fire is Holika, sister of Hiranyakashipu, who held a boon against burning and sat in the flames with the child Prahlada in her lap to kill him. The boy came out unhurt and she did not. The bonfire is her pyre, and the survival of devotion through fire is the meaning read into it.

What is put into the fire is worth noticing. Ears of the new grain, green gram and chickpea still on the stalk, are roasted in it and eaten. The Sanskrit holaka means exactly that, half roasted grain, and it is the likeliest origin of the name. Under the festival is a harvest fire at the end of the cold season.