- cost, as well as the feast of tabernacles, after harvest. Our
Christmas and Easter correspond to the Pongol and Holi of the Hindus in point of time; and even the observances usual at Christmas have, as Wilson has pointed out, much resemblance to those of the Pongol.
There are in Ceylon five annual festivals, of which one, occurring at the commencement of the year (in April), is marked by the singular circumstance that "before New Year's day every individual procures from an astrologer a writing, fixing the fortunate hours of the approaching year on which to commence duties or ceremonies." Of the five festivals the most important was the Paraherra, which lasted from the new moon to the full moon in July, and consisted mainly in a series of religious processions, concluding with one in which the casket containing the Dalada, or tooth of Buddha, was borne upon an elephant. The fifth festival, called that of "New Rice," was held at the commencement of the great harvest, and was the occasion of offerings made with a view to good crops (E. Y., vol. i. p. 314-318).
The consecrated actions by which men seek to recommend themselves to their gods at these special seasons are very various. It would be useless to attempt to enumerate them at length. Of the manner in which New Year's day is observed among the Chinese, (C. O., vol. ii. pp. 194, 195) the commencement of the year among Hindus (W. W., vol. ii. p. 158 ff.), and Christmas among ourselves, it will be unnecessary to speak at all, for there is little of a religious character in these festivals. Indeed, New Year's day in China seems to be a merely secular festival; while the Christmas season in European countries, though varnished over with a religious gloss, is in reality palpably one of popular rejoicing, handed down from our pagan ancestors, and placed in a legendary relation to the birth of Christ. The religious rites which may accompany this festival have therefore a secondary importance. Those observed at other times bear reference either to the frame of mind induced by the season, or to the particular legend commemorated; or they may be purely arbitrary and enjoined by ecclesiastical authority. An example of the first kind is the Jewish feast of tabernacles, when the harvest had been gathered in, and the
