Digital Rare Book:
The Hindu Religious Year
By Muriel Marion Underhill
Published by Association Press, Calcutta - 1921


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PREFACE
A FEW years ago I published a small book under the name of The Hindu Year: a Primer on the Hindu Calendar of Maharashtra. It consisted of the Calendar which forms Chapter VII of the present book, with very short comments in the form of footnotes.

It was pointed out by several readers at the time that there was room for a much fuller book on the same subject, which, while dealing in detail with customs in Maharashtra, should describe the festivals common to the whole of Hindu India, and so prove useful to a much wider circle. An attempt to do this has been made in
the present book.

A mere list of feasts is unsatisfactory. Some attempt to trace customs back to their sources is necessary. The study of Anthropology in India still leaves large fields untouched, and much yet remains to be done. But in Chapters III to VI, the existing feasts have been related in each case to what I believe to be their
origins, whether Sun worship with resultant Seasonal
feasts, Moon worship with resultant Monthly feasts, Planet worship, the worship of Siva and Vishnu, or the
worship of Animistic deities.

Chapter I deals with the Hindu method of reckoning time, Chapter II with Auspicious and Inauspicious seasons, while Chapter VIII applies only to Maharashtra, being a list, with notes, of the principal Religious Fairs of the country.

It would be interesting and useful if similar lists of
local fairs, descriptions of local variations in the observance of the main Hindu festivals, and an account of purely local feasts could be drawn up for each province in India, and it is hoped that there may be forthcoming those able and willing to undertake these tasks.

Apart from such local details, the festivals, as described in the present book, are, I believe, common
to the whole of Hindu India.