Folk customs in agriculture in that era and today, in the context of the Atharvavedic Kṛṣisūkta/ অথর্ববেদীয় কৃষিসূক্তের প্রেক্ষাপটে কৃষিক্ষেত্রে অনুসৃত লোকাচারের সেকাল ও একাল

Abstract

India is an agricultural country, so the influence of agriculture on the literature, culture and folklore of this country is considerable. As a result of the overall dependence of the Vedic social system on sacrifices, the practice of sacrifices has also been followed in the agricultural sector. In the Vedic mantras, the god of agriculture has sometimes been prayed for the prosperity of the crops, and in some places, special offerings have been made in sacrifices for the prosperity of the crops. Various rituals have been prescribed in the Vedic rituals on the occasion of sowing seeds and harvesting new crops. These rituals were initially confined to the so-called vaitānika or sacrificial rituals, far from the common ones. But in the later Atharvavedic folklore, they have become very popular, and the Vedic trend of these agricultural-centric rituals has been combined with various folk trends during the period of Atharvavedic Sūtra literature. As a result, as these agricultural-centric folk customs gradually became popular, they also successfully crossed the boundaries of country and time and entered the international arena. Similarly, these popular folk customs or festivals have found a place in the literature of the later period. In the prepared essay, I intend to talk a few words about the nature of the folk customs practiced in the agricultural sector of that time and the types of their ceremonies in the later period, in the context of an agricultural hymn from the Atharvaveda.