The festivities must continue dear reflections! PURIM | PURNIMA | HOLI In few hours, festivities for the Jewish festival of Purim would wrap up. Precisely at that time - at the rising of the full moon - festivities for the Hindu festival of Holi would start. This is not a coincidence for this year. Purim and Holi are both benchmarked to the same full moon, that roughly occurs in the month of February or March. Adar in Hebrew calendar, Phalgun in Hindi calendar. Both Purim and Holi are said to have originated around 2500 years ago, and both carry an uncanny similarity of legendary stories associated with their origin. Purim celebrates the foiling of the evil plot of Haman to exterminate the Jews of Persia; Holi celebrates the foiling of a similar plot of Holika against her own nephew who was a Vaishnav. Pur, puri, purnam in Sanskrit simply means full, or when associable, full of. Every full-moon night is called Purnima. The term Purim having such a strong and meaningful semblance thus seems quite revealing. To observe commonalities between ancient Sanskrit and Farsi languages can be exhilarating, though not surprising. Both cultures and their languages originated in nearly an even geography that is todays western Afghanistan and eastern Iran. These words of the originator of the uncertainty principle, Nobel-laureate Werner Heisenberg come to mind - It is probably true quite generally that in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet. These lines may have their roots in quite different parts of human culture, in different times or different cultures environments or different religious traditions: hence if they actually meet, that is, if they are at least so much related to each other that a real interaction can take place, then one may hope that new and interesting developments may follow Wish you all a very happy Purim and a colourful Holi!
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 06:08:00 +0000
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