Daijiworld Media Network - Thalavadi (SHP)
Thalavadi, Nov 8: In the Gumatapura village of Tamil Nadu, a festival is celebrated on the fourth day after Diwali, popularly known as Gore Habba. Interestingly the participants play and bathe with cow faeces to bring them 'good health'.
A video related to the festival shows several people gleefully playing and throwing cow dung at one another. The villagers claim that the dung has healing powers. Cow dung in India is used for a variety of purposes; it serves as stove fuel and is also used to insulate houses. While the thought of being covered in dung sounds revolting, the villagers think otherwise.
"Cow dung is very natural and has a lot of medicinal benefits. Others might say if we throw cow dung at each other we will get some infections or even some disease. But with the trust of our god Beereshwara, we are playing in the cow dung, so nothing happens to us," a local was quoted by RT.
Gore Habba comes from the belief ‘that remains of a saint were placed in a pit in the village which took the shape of a Linga (an abstract phallic representation of Shiva). The linga later got covered by cow excrement with time. The deity of the village valued cow excrement too, causing the villagers to dump the cow dung in abundance behind the local temple.
Although the festival boasts of allowing everyone to participate irrespective of religion has continued to forbid the women who are only allowed to watch from sidelines.