Gajan (festival)

Gajan
Gajan festival at the village Narna of Howrah
Also called	Shiva Gajon
Observed by	Hindus and Tribal people of East India
Type	Cultural
Significance	marriage ceremony of Lord Shiva and Harakali
Celebrations	open air drama
Begins	last week of Choitro
Frequency	Annually
Related to	Lord Shiva

Gajan or Shiva gajon is a Hindu festival celebrated mostly in the Indian state of West Bengal and Bangladesh. It is associated with such deities as Shiva, Neel and Dharmaraj. Gajan spans around a week, starting at the last week of Choitro continuing till the end of the Bengali year. It ends with Charak Puja on the last day of Chaitra, the last month in the Bengali Hindu calendar. The next day is Poila Baishakh,the first day of Bengali New Year. Participants of this festival is known as Sannyasi or Bhakta. Persons of any gender can be a participant. The complete history of the festival is not known. The central theme of this festival is deriving satisfaction through non-sexual pain, devotion and sacrifice. ^{[citation needed]}

Etymology

The word gajan in Bengali comes from the word garjan or roar that sannyasis (hermits) emit during the festivities.^[1] Alternatively, the word gajan is considered a combination of parts of two words - ga is from the word gram meaning village and jan is from the word janasadharan meaning folk. In this sense gajan is a festival of village folk.^[2]

Significance

In Shiva's gajan Shiva is married to Harakali on this day. The sannyasis form the barjatri (bridegroom's party). In Dharma's gajan Dharmathakur is married to Kamini-Kamakhya in Bankura Dist.or Mukti.^[1] The most recent studies on the gajan festival are: 1) Nicholas, R. Rites of Spring. Gājan in Village Bengal. New Delhi: Chronicle Books, 2008; and 2) Ferrari, F.M. Guilty Males and Proud Females. Negotiating Genders in a Bengali Festival. Calcutta and London: Seagull, 2010.

Fairs

Fairs are often associated with the celebration of gajan.

References

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gajan Festival.

• Sur, B. (2017). "The Dutch East India Company through the Local Lens: Exploring the Dynamics of Indo-Dutch Relations in Seventeenth Century Bengal". Indian Historical Review. 44 (1): 62–91. doi:10.1177/0376983617712811. PMC 6187071. PMID 30369711 – via ResearchGate.
• Satpati, Lakshminarayan (2021). "Gajan: A Cultural Heritage of the Marginalized People in Kulpi CD Block, West Bengal". Habitat, Ecology and Ekistics. Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research. pp. 193–204. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-49115-4_11. ISBN 978-3-030-49114-7. S2CID 226320030.
• "Becoming Shiva: The Gajan Sanyasis celebrate the blue gods marriage to Harkali". Firstpost. Retrieved 2022-03-08.
• "Extreme piercing: A festival of self-inflicted pain". BBC News. 2020-04-17. Retrieved 2022-03-08.