The Legend of Sun God :
Few days before Lohri, a bevy of village maidens assemble and visit the households to ask cow-dung cake. The girls gather round the house and chant:
We've come, all the girls of the village! We've come to your courtyard! And so they go from house to house collecting cow-dung cakes till they have
a veritable pile. They deposit all of them in one house and return to their homes. Their is a valid reason for girls to perform this ritual.
Lohri is celebrated on the last day of the month of Pans to mark the end of winter. It is said that the forefathers formulated a sacred mantra which
protected them from the cold. This mantra invoked the Sun God to send them so much heat that the winter cold would not affect them. And, in thanks-giving
to the Sun God, they chanted this mantra round a fire on the last day of Pans. The Lohri fire is symbolic of the homage to the sun.
song is sung on this occasion :
“Where have the shawls and braziers gone?
To the golden mountain Where's the golden mountain gone?
To the sun's ray Where has the sun's ray gone?
To the sun Where's the sun gone?
To the fire The fire burns, the ray warms
The snows melt, the cold days have ended.”
Our ancients believed that the flames of the fires they lit took their message to the sun, and that is why on the morning after Lohri, which is the first of
the new month Magh, the sun's rays suddenly turn warm and take the chill out of people’s bones.
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