Our ancestors were the real scientists...They had linked these scientific things with the spiritual and religion things so that the people would do it strictly....
Karthigai is one of the Tamil months.Karthigai season falls between the hot summer and the cold winter..during this period there is a great advent of insects which might cause many diseases.They might also destroy crops in the field which might drastically affect the cultivation.
To avoid such destruction they had made this as a habit of lighting lamps at all houses.In some houses they also have a practice of lighting the lamp for the whole karthigai month!!The insects might get attracted by the light and they come near it.when they reach near the lamp their body gets heated up by the flame and many get burnt...So we get rid of most of the insects...
Added to it in all temples they burn sokkapannai..it is nothing but burning dried palm leaves .The flame and the smoke of the palm leaves evade most of the poisonous insects....
In northern districts of Tamilnadu there is a practice of making a plaything out of palm leaves and inside they keep the burnt hot coal.they tie the play thing with the thread and rotate it around by standing in the centre.this is a quite risky one...there is a belief that if one rotates this they will not get any attacked by any diseases.They call it by name mavallai(don't know the exact name)
When it is circled there are fire sparkles that come out.they destroy the insects...
This is one of the reasons why we light lamps during karthigai....there might be many reasons but this was the one which my grandfather explained to me in detail when I was young.He was a strict atheist and he educated us with more science than with the fantasy stories
With the modern revolution ,most of us(including me) had been giving up the concept of joint family..I want my kids to get more of those knowledge than that of the one inculcated at schools..but no other go due to commitments on various fronts we are all compelled to live as a small family.
So I always leave my kids with the grannies and grandpas when they are free...I usually ask my kids to speak more to the aged people.they know more tactics of how to put in any information in an easy way.
Whenever i meet any old people may be in any occasions I try to speak with them the more.they provide us more information that we don't get in any books
I have the habit of recording all those informations in my personal book.
May be if I had not been into engineering I would have definitely taken history....such an interesting subject...
Thought of sharing the karthigai deepam info with my bloggers so that they can pass it on to their future generations...
Please comment if u like this info...
Nice Info..
ReplyDeleteFelt Nostalgic..