thesilkroadtoday
Indian civilisation has been shaped, in no small measure, by the rhythms of agriculture. The land, the monsoon, the crops, cattle and the labour of the farmer have all found a sacred place in India’s cultural imagination. Many of the country’s major festivals are rooted in this agrarian way of life. Whether it is Dussehra or Diwali, Gudi Padwa or Holi, beneath the colour and celebration of each lies a quiet acknowledgement of the earth and the agricultural cycle.
For the farmer, Gudi Padwa marks the beginning of a new year. It also heralds the beginning of a new calendar in the traditional Indian reckoning of time. Even today, the agricultural calendar in rural Maharashtra follows the cycle from Chaitra to Phalguna and remains closely linked to the nakshatras—the lunar constellations through which generations of farmers have observed and understood the changing seasons.
For a farmer immersed in the relentless work of cultivation, the passing of the first four of the nine rain-bearing nakshatras brings a brief respite. Ashlesha, Magha, Phalguni and Hasta offer farming families a few precious moments to pause, look beyond their immediate labour and express gratitude to the forces of nature that sustain them.
When Shravan arrives, gratitude takes the form of a series of festivals. On Nag Panchami, reverence is offered to the serpent deity; on Gokulashtami, to cows and calves; on the full moon, to the sea; and on the new moon, to the bull. For Maharashtrians, Nag Panchami and Bail Pola are not minor observances. They belong to the same emotional and cultural world as Dussehra and Diwali.
*The Bull in India’s Cultural Memory*
The relationship between the Indian farmer and the bull is ancient—far older than written history.
The Vedas, composed thousands of years ago, contain prayers associated with cattle and bulls. Archaeological remains from Mohenjo-daro and Harappa have also yielded representations of bulls. These traces from the distant past tell us something fundamental: the bull was not merely an animal in the life of the Indian subcontinent. It was a companion in labour, a source of livelihood and an enduring symbol of agricultural strength.
The sacred imagination of India, too, gave the bull an exalted place. Nandi, the sacred bull and devoted companion of Lord Shiva, sits facing the sanctum in temples dedicated to Mahadev. His quiet presence before the deity has become one of the most recognisable images of Hindu temple culture.
In Maharashtra, the bull has also long been associated with prophecy. At the beginning of the monsoon, members of the Nandibailwale community traditionally travelled from house to house with a decorated bull, making predictions about the rains and the agricultural season. Even today, they are remembered in many parts of rural Maharashtra as traditional rain predictors and fortune-tellers.
*The Bull in the Poetry of the Countryside*
Marathi rural poetry is, at heart, a poetry of the soil. It celebrates the earth, the farmer, the seasons and the arduous dignity of agricultural labour. In this poem, the farmer’s gratitude to his parents and to the land is often accompanied by an equally profound gratitude to the bull.
For centuries, agriculture depended upon the strength and endurance of bullocks. Ploughing, harrowing, sowing, hoeing and threshing—all demanded their labour. The bullock was indispensable not only in the field but also beyond it. Seeds were carried to the fields on bullock carts; harvested grain travelled from the farm to the market in them. Until only a few decades ago, bullock carts and Damani—traditional bullock-drawn carriages—were a familiar sight on village roads, sometimes carrying
daughters returning to their parental homes.
The bull was also an essential part of what was traditionally regarded as godhan—the wealth represented by cattle. Until perhaps fifty years ago, the prosperity of a rural household could often be judged by the number of cows, bulls, heifers and calves it owned. Cattle sheds and shelters on the edges of villages would be alive with the sounds and movements of livestock.
In such a world, Bail Pola emerged not simply as a festival but as an expression of gratitude.
*When the Farmer Worships His Companion*
Pola is the farmer’s day of thanksgiving to the bull.
For two days, the animals that spend the rest of the year labouring in the fields are released from every task. They are allowed to rest. On the eve of Pola, they are ceremonially invited to the festival. That evening, their shoulders and humps are massaged in a ritual known as Khande Malani.
The prominent hump, or Vashinda, is one of the distinctive features of many bulls of the Indian subcontinent. In the evening before Pola, turmeric, ghee and oil are lovingly rubbed into the hump and shoulders. It is an intimate ritual of care—the farmer tending to the very body that has carried so much of his own labour.
Then comes the festival day.
On the walls of village houses, written in red ochre, appear the words:
*“Today Is Pola.”*
The words are more than a statement of the day’s celebration. They are an open invitation—a declaration that the village is rejoicing.
At dawn, the bulls are taken to the river or a village water source and bathed. They are cleaned with fragrant oils and perfumes. Their horns are painted in brilliant colours and adorned with patterns, ornaments and peacock feathers. Their backs are covered with richly coloured clothes. Silver or brass bells are tied around their legs, and a new rope halter is placed around the head.
Their bodies are marked with dots of red ochre. A decorative headpiece, or bashing, is tied around the forehead. Sometimes garlands of flowers and leaves are placed around their heads. Cowrie shells and bells are fashioned into necklaces and hung around their necks.
The working animal is transformed into a magnificent ceremonial presence.
Yet the most tender offering awaits him at home: puran poli, the traditional Maharashtrian sweet flatbread, is prepared as an offering for the bull.
*A Procession of Colour, Music and Memory*
The village then comes alive.
The bulls are taken out in a grand procession. At its head are the sanai-chaughada, bands and other traditional musical instruments. People of different castes, communities and faiths join the celebration with their bullocks. For a moment, social distinctions recede before a shared agricultural heritage.
In some villages, traditional songs known as Jhadtya are sung during the festivities.
At the entrance to the village and outside individual homes, torans made of mango leaves are hung to welcome the bulls. When the decorated animals arrive in procession, the Bailkari—the person accompanying the bull—leads it through the ceremonial toran, breaking it as a mark of honour.
In earlier times, this privilege was reserved for the village Patil, Deshmukh or another honoured person. Today, it generally goes to the owner of the bullock pair leading the procession.
Then comes one of the most memorable moments of the celebration.
Hundreds of bulls gather around the village temple. Their symbolic wedding is performed amid the tumult of music, in a ritual echoing the mangalashtakas—the auspicious verses traditionally recited during Hindu weddings.
After the ceremony, the bulls circumambulate the temple of Maruti or another sacred place.
To watch hundreds of decorated bulls running swiftly around the temple is a spectacle of extraordinary beauty. People gather everywhere—on raised platforms, verandas, upper storeys and rooftops—just to witness the sight.
For a few moments, the entire village seems to move to the rhythm of the animals.
*The Sacred Guest at Every Door*
The procession eventually disperses, and the bulls return to the homes of their owners.
At each house, an offering awaits them on a wooden cot or raised platform. The bull is welcomed with a five-flame arati. His feet are ceremonially worshipped. The family bows before him with affection and reverence, and feeds him the sacred offering.
In a farmer’s household, the happiness of Pola is no less than the happiness of Diwali.
Perhaps this is what makes Pola so distinctive. It is a festival in which the human being bows before the creature that has shared his labour.
*A Festival at the Edge of Disappearance*
But the landscape that gave birth to Pola is changing rapidly.
Thirty or forty years ago, thousands of bullocks could be seen in the villages of Maharashtra. Over the past twenty-five years, however, mechanisation has transformed agriculture. Tractors and other machines have entered almost every stage of farming. The bull, once indispensable to agricultural life, is gradually being pushed out of it.
The thousands of cattle once found in villages have dwindled to hundreds. In cities, a bull has become an increasingly rare sight.
There is something deeply poignant in this transformation.
The children of farmers who have settled in cities now sometimes buy clay models of bulls and worship them in their home shrines. In the villages from which their families came, however, there may no longer be a single living bull tethered in the cattle shed.
The ritual survives, but the reality that created it is disappearing.
Perhaps, in a few years, Bail Pola will survive only as a memory—a name remembered from the stories of grandparents, a festival preserved in photographs, a clay bull placed before a household shrine.
*The Bull as Earth, Sun, Sweat and Hope*
On the occasion of Pola, I recall a beautiful poem about the bull from Vrishabhasukta, a collection by the renowned Marathi poet Vitthal Wagh. In these verses, the bull becomes much more than an animal. He becomes a meeting point of earth and sky, labour and faith, ancestry and hope.
The bull is the grace of the sky,
The bull is the guardian of the earth;
The merit of the black soil,
The fruit of penance fulfilled.The bull is descended from the moon,
The bull is heir to the sun;
The bull in my cattle shed
Is the light of generationsThe bull is the image of sweat,
The bull is the symbol of labour;
In my fields, the bull
Draws a green swastika.
These lines carry an echo of an ancient prayer.
Thousands of years ago, the Vedic imagination invoked the bull with reverence. In Vitthal Wagh’s poetry, that reverence returns in a modern voice—equally sincere, intimate and sacred. The poem gives expression to the emotional world of the farmer: his dependence upon the bull, his gratitude for its labour and his recognition of the animal as a partner in the making of life.
But there is an irony at the heart of this celebration.
A festival born from one of India’s oldest agricultural traditions may itself be becoming a relic of that tradition.
*Today is Pola.*
Today, the bull is honoured, decorated, worshipped and celebrated.
But for how many more years will there be a living bull to celebrate?
*(Dr. Prithviraj Taur is Professor and Director at the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University, Nanded, India.)*
