Raksha Bandhan

For the 1976 film, see Khamma Mara Veera. For the 2022 film, see Raksha Bandhan (film). For the television series, see Rakshabandhan (TV series).

Raksha Bandhan
A rakhi being tied during Raksha Bandhan
Official nameRaksha Bandhan
Also calledRakhi, Saluno, Silono, Rakri.
Observed byHindus
TypeHindu
DatePurnima (full moon) of Shravana
2024 date19 August (Monday)[1]
Related toBhai Duj, Bhai Tika, Sama Chakeva
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"Mayer's (1960: 219) observation for central India would not be inaccurate for most communities in the subcontinent:

A man's tie with his sister is accounted very close. The two have grown up together, at an age when there is no distinction made between the sexes. And later, when the sister marries, the brother is seen as her main protector, for when her father has died to whom else can she turn if there is trouble in her conjugal household.

The parental home, and after the parents' death the brother's home, often offers the only possibility of temporary or longer-term support in case of divorce, desertion, and even widowhood, especially for a woman without adult sons. Her dependence on this support is directly related to economic and social vulnerability."[2]

 — Bina Agarwal in A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (1994), quoting Adrian C. Mayer, Caste and kinship in Central India (1960)

Raksha Bandhan[3] is a popular and traditionally Hindu annual rite or ceremony that is central to a festival of the same name celebrated in South Asia. It is also celebrated in other parts of the world significantly influenced by Hindu culture. On this day, sisters of all ages tie a talisman or amulet called the rakhi around the wrists of their brothers.[4] The sisters symbolically protect the brothers, receive a gift in return, and traditionally invest the brothers with a share of the responsibility of their potential care.[2]

Raksha Bandhan is observed on the last day of the Hindu lunar calendar month of Shravana, which typically falls in August. The expression "Raksha Bandhan" (Sanskrit, literally "the bond of protection, obligation, or care") is now principally applied to this ritual. Until the mid-20th century, the expression was more commonly applied to a similar ritual, held on the same day, with precedence in ancient Hindu texts. In that ritual, a domestic priest ties amulets, charms, or threads on the wrists of his patrons, or changes their sacred thread, and receives gifts of money. This is still the case in some places.[5][6] By contrast, the sister-brother festival, with origins in folk culture, had names which varied with location. Some were rendered as saluno,[7][8] silono,[9] and rakri.[5] A ritual associated with saluno included the sisters placing shoots of barley behind the ears of their brothers.[7]

Of special significance to married women, Raksha Bandhan is rooted in the practice of territorial or village exogamy. The bride marries out of her natal village or town, and her parents by custom do not visit her in her married home.[10] In rural north India, where village exogamy is strongly prevalent, large numbers of married Hindu women travel back to their parents' homes every year for the ceremony.[11][12] Their brothers, who typically live with their parents or nearby, sometimes travel to their sisters' married home to escort them back. Many younger married women arrive a few weeks earlier at their natal homes and stay until the ceremony.[13] The brothers serve as lifelong intermediaries between their sisters' married and parental homes,[14] as well as potential stewards of their security.

In urban India, where families are increasingly nuclear, the festival has become more symbolic but continues to be highly popular. The rituals associated with this festival have spread beyond their traditional regions and have been transformed through technology and migration.[15] Other factors that have played a role are: the movies,[16] social interaction,[17] and promotion by politicized Hinduism,[18][19] as well as by the nation state.[20] Among females and males who are not blood relatives, the act of tying the rakhi amulets has given rise to the tradition of voluntary kin relations, which has sometimes cut across lines of caste, class, and religion.[21][22] Authority figures have been included in such a ceremony.[23]

  1. ^ "When is Raksha Bandhan in 2023: Date, Time, and Significance". India Today. 14 January 2023. Retrieved 16 July 2023.
  2. ^ a b Agarwal, Bina (1994), A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia, Cambridge University Press, p. 264, ISBN 978-0-521-42926-9
  3. ^ McGregor, Ronald Stuart (1993), The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-563846-2 Quote: m Hindi rakśābandhan held on the full moon of the month of Savan, when sisters tie a talisman (rakhi q.v.) on the arm of their brothers and receive small gifts of money from them.
  4. ^ Lochtefeld, James G. (2002). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism: N-Z. Rosen. p. 549. ISBN 978-0-8239-3180-4.
  5. ^ a b Berreman, Gerald Duane (1963), Hindus of the Himalayas, University of California Press, pp. 390–, GGKEY:S0ZWW3DRS4S Quote: Rakri: On this date Brahmins go from house to house tying string bracelets (rakrī) on the wrists of household members. In return the Brahmins receive from an anna to a rupee from each household. ... This is supposed to be auspicious for the recipient. ... It has no connotation of brother-sister devotion as it does in some plains areas. It is readily identified with Raksha Bandhan.
  6. ^ Gnanambal, K. (1969), Festivals of India, Anthropological Survey of India, Government of India, p. 10 Quote: In North India, the festival is popularly called Raksha Bandhan ... On this day, sisters tie an amulet round the right wrists of brothers wishing them long life and prosperity. Family priests (Brahmans) make it an occasion to visit their clientele to get presents.
  7. ^ a b Marriott, McKim (1955), "Little Communities in an Indigenous Civilization", in McKim Marriott (ed.), Village India: Studies in the Little Community, University of Chicago Press, pp. 198–202, ISBN 9780226506432
  8. ^ Wadley, Susan S. (27 July 1994), Struggling with Destiny in Karimpur, 1925-1984, University of California Press, pp. 84, 202, ISBN 978-0-520-91433-9 Quote: (p 84) Potters: ... But because the festival of Saluno takes place during the monsoon when they can't make pots, they make pots in three batches ...
  9. ^ Lewis, Oscar (1965), Village Life in Northern India: Studies in a Delhi Village, University of Illinois Press, p. 208, ISBN 9780598001207
  10. ^ Coleman, Leo (2017), A Moral Technology: Electrification as Political Ritual in New Delhi, Cornell University Press, p. 127, ISBN 978-1-5017-0791-9 Quote: Rakhi and its local performances in Kishan Garhi were part of a festival in which connections between out-marrying sisters and village-resident brothers were affirmed. In the "traditional" form of this rite, according to Marriott, sisters exchanged with their brothers to ensure their ability to have recourse—at a crisis, or during childbearing—to their natal village and their relatives there even after leaving for their husband's home. For their part, brothers engaging in these exchanges affirmed the otherwise hard-to-discern moral solidarity of the natal family, even after their sister's marriage.
  11. ^ Goody, Jack (1990), The Oriental, the Ancient and the Primitive: Systems of Marriage and the Family in the Pre-Industrial Societies of Eurasia, Cambridge University Press, p. 222, ISBN 978-0-521-36761-5 Quote: "... the heavy emphasis placed on the continuing nature of brother-sister relations despite the fact that in the North marriage requires them to live in different villages. That relation is celebrated and epitomised in the annual ceremony of Rakśābandhan in northern and western India. ... The ceremony itself involves the visit of women to their brothers (that is, to the homes of their own fathers, their natal homes)
  12. ^ Hess, Linda (2015), Bodies of Song: Kabir Oral Traditions and Performative Worlds in North India, Oxford University Press, p. 61, ISBN 978-0-19-937416-8 Quote: "In August comes Raksha Bandhan, the festival celebrating the bonds between brothers and sisters. Married sisters return, if they can, to their natal villages to be with their brothers.
  13. ^ Wadley, Susan Snow (2005), Essays on North Indian Folk Traditions, Orient Blackswan, p. 66, ISBN 978-81-8028-016-0 Quote: In Savan, greenness abounds as the newly planted crops take root in the wet soil. It is a month of joy and gaiety, with swings hanging from tall trees. Girls and women swing high into the sky, singing their joy. The gaiety is all the more marked because women, especially the young ones, are expected to return to their natal homes for an annual visit during Savan.
  14. ^ Gnanambal, K. (1969), Festivals of India, Anthropological Survey of India, Government of India, p. 10
  15. ^ Coleman, Leo (2017), A Moral Technology: Electrification as Political Ritual in New Delhi, Cornell University Press, p. 148, ISBN 978-1-5017-0791-9 Quote: In modern rakhi, technologically mediated and performed with manufactured charms, migrating men are the medium by which the village women interact, vertically, with the cosmopolitan center—the site of radio broadcasts, and the source of technological goods and national solidarity
  16. ^ Pandit, Vaijayanti (2003), BUSINESS @ HOME, Vikas Publishing House, p. 234, ISBN 978-81-259-1218-7 Quote: "Quote: Raksha Bandhan traditionally celebrated in North India has acquired greater importance due to Hindi films. Lightweight and decorative rakhis, which are easy to post, are needed in large quantities by the market to cater to brothers and sisters living in different parts of the country or abroad."
  17. ^ Khandekar, Renuka N. (2003), Faith: filling the God-sized hole, Penguin Books, p. 180, ISBN 9780143028840 Quote: "But since independence and the gradual opening up of Indian society, Raksha Bandhan as celebrated in North India has won the affection of many South Indian families. For this festival has the peculiar charm of renewing sibling bonds."
  18. ^ Joshy, P. M.; Seethi, K. M. (2015), State and Civil Society under Siege: Hindutva, Security and Militarism in India, SAGE Publications, p. 112, ISBN 978-93-5150-383-5 Quote (p. 111): The RSS employs a cultural strategy to mobilise people through festivals. It observes six major festivals in a year. ... Till 20 years back, festivals like Raksha Bandhan were unknown to South Indians. Through Shakha's intense campaign, now they have become popular in the southern India. In colleges and schools tying 'Rakhi'—the thread that is used in the 'Raksha Bandhan'—has become a fashion and this has been popularised by the RSS and ABVP cadres.
  19. ^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (1999), The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics: 1925 to the 1990s : Strategies of Identity-building, Implantation and Mobilisation (with Special Reference to Central India), Penguin Books, p. 39, ISBN 978-0-14-024602-5 Quote: This ceremony occurs in a cycle of six annual festivals which often coincides with those observed in Hindu society, and which Hedgewar inscribed in the ritual calendar of his movement: Varsha Pratipada (the Hindu new year), Shivajirajyarohonastava (the coronation of Shivaji), guru dakshina, Raksha Bandhan (a North Indian festival in which sisters tie ribbons round the wrists of their brothers to remind them of their duty as protectors, a ritual which the RSS has re-interpreted in such a way that the leader of the shakha ties a ribbon around the pole of the saffron flag, after which swayamsevaks carry out this ritual for one another as a mark of brotherhood), ....
  20. ^ Coleman, Leo (2017), A Moral Technology: Electrification as Political Ritual in New Delhi, Cornell University Press, p. 148, ISBN 978-1-5017-0791-9 Quote: ... as citizens become participants in the wider "new traditions" of the national state. Broadcast mantras become the emblems of a new level of state power and the means of the integration of villagers and city dwellers alike into a new community of citizens
  21. ^ Heitzman, James; Worden, Robert L. (1996), India: A Country Study, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, p. 246, ISBN 978-0-8444-0833-0
  22. ^ Vanita, Ruth (2002), "Dosti and Tamanna: Male-Male Love, Difference, and Normativity in Hindi Cinema", in Diane P. Mines; Sarah Lamb (eds.), Everyday Life in South Asia, Indiana University Press, pp. 146–158, 157, ISBN 978-0-253-34080-1
  23. ^ Chowdhry, Prem (1994), The Veiled Women: Shifting Gender Equations in Rural Haryana, Oxford University Press, pp. 312–313, ISBN 978-0-19-567038-7 Quote: The same symbolic protection is also requested from the high caste men by the low caste women in a work relationship situation. The ritual thread is offered, though not tied and higher caste men customarily give some money in return.