"Long before the commencement of the feast an unwonted activity pervades native society. The Pongol is _the_ social festival of the year, and must be celebrated with due honour, else an ineffaceable stain will rest on the family name. It is the Christmas and Whitsuntide of England made into one.... So soon as the _rains have finished_, and this may be expected by about the first week in December, the carpenter, the builder, and the artists are in full work repairing the houses.... The sides of the road in the bazaar are heaped with 'chatties' of all sizes and shapes. Presents are bought for children. Distant relatives have no fields of their own from which to get their rice, so a sack of the new grain from the ancestral acres goes off to each. To this is added a pot of ghee, a set of brass pots, or perhaps a jewel; that the Pongol may not lack wherewith to make it joyful." Creditors and debtors are often brought then to a compromise, or the process is postponed "till after Pongol." "All must be ready by the early part of January, when, according to the Hindu astrologers, the sun enters the tropic of Capricorn. The feast hangs upon this, and it will be seen that the most interesting event of the celebration must exactly coincide with the passage of the sun. The festival commences on the previous day, and lasts for seven days, of which the second marks the sun's passage, and is called Mahâ (or great) Pongol, ... the next day is Bhôgi Pongol, or Pongol of rejoicing, equally well known by the name of Indra, ... bonfires and torches are illuminated (compare Boulanger, lib. i. ch. ii.) The feast is now begun, and all turn from the fire, as it is extinguished by the rising sun, to the _bath_, with which every religious rite must commence. No image is used during the whole course of the celebration, except that of Ganesa.... Indra is represented on ordinary occasions as _a white man_ sitting on an elephant. In his left hand is a bow (compare ch. xv.), and in his right a thunderbolt, while his body is studded with a thousand eyes. [Query, a reference to the peacock? Compare ch. xv.] Agni has also his special image, that of a stout man, red and hairy as Esau, riding on a goat [compare Bacchus, p. 214]. Sûrya is also a red man, sitting on a water lily. He has four arms and three eyes. But none of these (deities) are known at Pongol any more than they were at the time when the hymns of the Rig Veda were composed.... The gifts are laid out on trays,--a vase of sugar, or perhaps an idol, _peacock_ or elephant, round which will be grouped smaller works in sugar for the children.... One thing may not be forgotten, that is a lime [compare 'gourd,' p. 256]. This must be _as large_ as money can buy, and then be carefully encased in gold leaf till it looks like one of the golden apples of antiquity. The next day is Mahâ (or great) Pongol. It is often called Sûrya Pongol. At noon the sun will cross