CHAPTER III PERSPECTIVE OF FAIRS AND FESTIVALS 3.0 INTRODUCTION Fairs and festivals are an important part of social activities of man. They are arranged all over the world in a variety of ways. Some celebrations are specific to certain areas and some are celebrated by different group, communities in certain villages, cities or even state or country. This gives raise to fairs and festivals their own local flavors. Fairs and festivals are important parts of the Indian cultural life. The life of Indian people revolves round the fairs and festivals. In other words we can say that fairs and festivals are heart of the Indian socio-cultural life. In India traditional fairs and festivals are connected with religious beliefs, changing season's harvests etc. They are varied in origin. Many of them are performed in a particular manner in different parts of the country. They attract a large number of people from distant places. Hence fairs and festivals have tremendous tourism potential both domestic as well as foreign. Solapur district of the Maharashtra state is one of the famous fairs and festivals tourist place in India. Solapur district is unique in religious activities. In Solapur district there is a festival for every season. Many fairs and festivals celebrate on the various reasons such as birth or death anniversary of historical religious people in different religions, worship of different gods etc. There are a number of places which have religious importance out of some places like Pandharpur, Akkalkot etc. are not only national but world famous. So these places are declared as tourist's centers by government. So it is very important to geographical study of such things. Also focuses the attention on the classification of fairs and festivals of district for the purpose of to develop the tourism activities in the district. In the sense of research this chapter deals with the meaning of the fairs and festivals, their distribution and classification in Solapur district, reasons behind celebrating fairs and festivals and so on. 64 3.1 MEANING, DISTRIBUTION AND CLASSIFICATION OF FAIRS AND FESTIVALS For the detailed and systematic study of the fairs and festivals in Solapur district, we need to the classification of fairs and festivals in specific groups. But before preparation of classification and distribution, we also need to understand the meaning of words fair and festivals. Generally, words fair and festival use as interchangeable. 3.1.1 Meaning of Fairs Some scholars stated that the word „Fair‟ may have originated from the Latin word fair or holydays. According to evidence of fairs from Bible (holy book of christen religion), 2000 years ago fairs were considered as a commercial place for merchants to buy and sell their products or goods. On the basis of detailed study some scholars concluded that at that time business activities and religious activities were held in conjunction with each other. So some scholars believe that the word Fairs may have originated from the Latin word fair or holydays. In India fairs are mostly associated with cultural background of religious activities, festivals, agricultural events, local temple etc. Fair is a place where a large number of peoples gathered at specified time for purpose of buying and selling of goods. In short fair is a mixture of commerce, trade, festivals, religious feast and holydays. 3.1.2 Meaning of festivals The etymology of feast is very similar to that of festival. Among many religions, a feast or festival is a set of celebrations in honor of god and goddesses. A feast and festival are historically interchangeable. There is some definition of festivals as follows According to the Webster‟s college dictionary, festivals means a day or time of religious or other celebration marked by feasting ceremonies or other observances. According to the Oxford dictionary, festival is a day or period of celebration typically for religious reasons. According to the Kernerman English learners dictionary, festival is a celebration of a special religious or cultural event. According to the Collins English dictionary, festival is a day or period set aside for celebration or feasting especially one of religious significance. 65 Dr. Robin Tribhuwan defines the festival as “It is an occasion that reinforces the presence of god in the life of the individual and the family and binds them to the community. They are also moments for young people to absorb and be part of age-old yet still vibrant and living traditions.” A festival may be observed with acts of worship offerings to deity's puja, homa, aarti, fasting, vows etc. With the help of above definition, we define festival as “It is a time of celebration with involvement of family, friends, relatives and community to celebrate the special religious or cultural event.” 3.1.3 Classification of fairs in Solapur district In the study region it is observed that total 1087 villages have their own fairs. Before classification of fairs of Solapur district there is important to first identify the major fairs, which are celebrated in Solapur district. Table No. 3.1 shows that list of the major fairs of Solapur district. Table No. 3.1 Important fairs in Solapur District Sr. No Name of Fair 1 Shri Mahalingraya Yatra – Huljanti 2 Siddheshwar Yatra- Solapur 3 Sangmeshwar Yatra Kudal Hattarsang 4 Shri Naganath Yatra - Mohol 5 Shri Khandoba Yatra- Bale 6 Ambika Devi Yatra - Sangola 7 Shri Nagnath Yatra – Hivare 8 Madheshwari Devi Fair, Madha 9 Shri Nagnath Yatra -Vadval 10 Shri Matruling Ganpati Yatra- Siddhapur 11 Guru Panchakshari Yatra Malkavathe (Source- Data compiled by Researcher) Table No. 3.1 shows that list of the major fairs of Solapur district. Table reveals that their total 11 major fairs celebrated in Solapur district. For the purpose of detail study researcher classifies the fairs in specific groups. So classifies the fairs of the Solapur district in following ways. 66 Table No. 3.2 Classification of the fairs according to the annual frequency of fairs No. of Villages who have following annual Sr. Tahsil Frequency of fairs Total No No Fairs at 1 time 2 time More than 2 time place 1 Karmala 06 101 07 02 116 2 Madha 10 81 14 12 117 3 Barshi 07 113 09 07 136 4 North Solapur 05 39 07 03 54 5 Mohol 01 94 08 01 104 6 Pandharpur 05 84 05 01 95 7 Malshiras 03 88 11 08 110 8 Sangola 07 85 01 04 97 9 Mangalwedha 01 73 85 01 80 10 South Solapur 02 84 03 01 90 11 Akkalkot 00 128 06 01 135 Total 47 970 76 41 1134 (Source- Data compiled by Researcher) Table No. 3.2 Indicated, In Solapur district there are total 47 villages, which have not celebrated any fairs. Total 970 villages have once annually fairs where as total 76 villages celebrated fairs 2 times in the year. Total 41 villages celebrated more than 2times fairs annually. ANNUAL FREQUENCIES OF FAIRS 140 120 Index 100 80 60 No Fairs at place Frequency 1 time 40 2 time 20 More than 2 time 0 Tahsils Fig. 3.1 67 Classification according to the number of tourists The Table No. 3.3 shows that total 1087 fairs are celebrated in the Solapur district. But out of them some fairs have a maximum number of tourist. So it is important to study these fairs on the basis of number of tourist. Table No. 3.3 Classification of the fairs according to the number of tourist Number of villages who have following no of Sr. No Tahsil tourist Total Less than more than 1,00,001 More than 1,00,000 1,00,000 to 5,00,000 5,00,000 1 Karmala 64 46 01 00 110 2 Madha 75 39 02 00 107 3 Barshi 100 28 01 00 127 4 North Solapur 37 13 01 00 49 5 Mohol 47 52 04 00 103 6 Pandharpur 55 33 04 01 90 7 Malshiras 56 51 02 00 107 8 Sangola 76 05 01 00 88 9 Mangalwedha 06 68 05 01 79 10 South Solapur 35 53 01 00 88 11 Akkalkot 92 31 02 01 133 Total 643 419 24 01 1087 (Source- Data compiled by Researcher) According to Table No.3.3 Akkalkot has highest no of fairs celebrated, followed by Barshi at second and Karmala at third position. In Solapur district there is total 649 fairs have less than 50000 numbers of tourists or visitors. 50001 to 100000 numbers of tourists visited 412 fairs in the district where as 23 fairs have 100001 to 500000 tourists. Solapur district have only 3 fairs which has more than 500000 numbers of tourists. 68 CLASSIFICATION OF FAIRS ACCORDING TO NUMBER OF TOURISTS IN SOLAPUR DISTRICT 120 100 80 60 Index 40 Less than 1,00,000 No. of Villagesof No. 20 more than 1,00,000 0 1,00,001 to 5,00,000 More than 5,00,000 Tahsils Fig. 3.2 Classification of the fairs and festivals according to the grant declared by the Government. Table No. 3.4 Classification of the fairs according to the grant declared by the Government A Division B Division C Division Total Sr. No Tahsil 1 Karmala 0 01 46 47 2 Madha 0 02 39 41 3 Barshi 0 01 28 29 4 North Solapur 0 01 13 14 5 Mohol 0 04 52 56 6 Pandharpur 1 04 33 38 7 Malshiras 0 02 51 53 8 Sangola 0 01 05 06 9 Mangalwedha 0 05 68 73 10 South Solapur 0 01 53 54 11 Akkalkot 0 02 31 33 Total 01 24 419 444 (Source- Data compiled by Researcher) For the purpose of development of rural pilgrimage centers in Maharashtra, government classified pilgrimage centers in three different groups on the basis of number of tourists.