Faiths, Fairs & Festivals of India

Faith, Fairs and Festivals of India : This volume is intended to be a comprehensive compendium of all that is culturally Indian ; for faiths, fairs and festivals give but only a superficial glimpse into a country’s ethos that is why their details have been preceded by an in-depth analysis of how these ceremonies and associated rituals have come to be created and what they actually convey. The three appendices have been added in the end to help the reader either learn or confirm as to what is to be eaten ; what is to be sung or chanted or how time is to be reckoned for particular festivals. The selected line drawings of certain festivals have been given to facilitate the reader to visualize their actual performances. Although an attempt has been made to list the faiths and festivals in their chronological order by the Gregorian calendar yet since most of the Hindu festivals are decided by the Hindu Vikram calendar and the Muslim ones by Hijri calendar, a brief idea about their time of occurrence has been given by broadly dividing the various festivals into their season-wise categorisation.