Mahalakshmi Dance.

Mahalakshmi Dance.

Another dance of the ecstatic kind is the Mahalaxmi dance better known as ghdgar phunkne and is performed only at the time of Mahalaksmi worship. [On the eighth of the bright half of Asvina, during the first five years of her wedding, the young wife, as may be the family custom has to worship the goddess Mahalaksmi.] During night as a part of the worship ritual each girl (worshipper) holds a ghdgar (a round water-pot narrow at the neck), in her hands, makes a rhythmic musical sound by blowing across the mouth of the ghagar and starts dancing before goddess. During the dance one of the girls starts blowing and dancing with greater animation than the rest, and presently swings her hands and is seized with the power of the goddess. Others stop dancing and the 'possessed' dancer is plied with questions about the 'unknown' by her friends which the goddess in her is believed to answer.