The word Nowruz (Novruz, Navruz, Nooruz, Nevruz, Nauryz), means new day; its spelling and pronunciation may vary by country. Nowruz marks the first day of spring and is celebrated on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox, which usually occurs on 21 March.
It is celebrated as the beginning of the new year by more than 300 million people all around the world and has been celebrated for over 3,000 years in the Balkans, the Black Sea Basin, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and other regions. Inscribed in 2009 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as a cultural tradition observed by numerous peoples, Nowruz is an ancestral festivity marking the first day of spring and the renewal of nature.
It promotes values of peace and solidarity between generations and within families as well as reconciliation and neighbourliness, thus contributing to cultural diversity and friendship among peoples and different communities.
Nowruz plays a significant role in strengthening the ties among peoples based on mutual respect and the ideals of peace and good neighbourliness. Its traditions and rituals reflect the cultural and ancient customs of the civilizations of the East and West, which influenced those civilizations through the interchange of human values. Celebrating Nowruz means the affirmation of life in harmony with nature, awareness of the inseparable link between constructive labour and natural cycles of renewal and a solicitous and respectful attitude towards natural sources of life.
International Nowruz Day was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly, in its resolution A/RES/64/253 of 2010, at the initiative of several countries that share this holiday. Under the agenda item of “culture of peace”, the member states of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan prepared and introduced a draft resolution (A/64/L.30) entitled "International Day of Nowruz" to the ongoing 64th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations for its consideration and adoption.
In the 71st plenary meeting on 23 February 2010, The General Assembly welcomed the inclusion of Nowruz in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on 30 September 2009.It also recognized 21 March as the International Day of Nowruz, and invited interested Member States, the United Nations, in particular its relevant specialized agencies, funds and programmes, and mainly the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and interested international and regional organizations, as well as non-governmental organizations, to participate in events organized by States where Nowruz is celebrated.
For the Northern Hemisphere, March 20 is the first day of spring. But for 300 million people around the world, it’s the beginning of a new year, too. Nowruz—which means “new day”—is a holiday marking the arrival of spring and the first day of the year in Iran, whose solar calendar begins with the vernal equinox.
Traditionally celebrated on the vernal equinox, many begin preparations for Nowruz weeks in advance. In the leadup to the holiday, people perform ritual dances and fill vessels in their home with water, which is associated with health, in an attempt to banish bad luck.
On the last Wednesday before Nowruz, many celebrate Charshanbe Suri, a night in which they jump over fire or go to doors banging spoons to scare away bad luck. People also visit cemeteries and bring offerings for the dead, whom some believe visit before the spring rite begins.The spring festival’s focus is fertility and new life, so it’s appropriate that many revelers celebrate with seeds and eggs. Households set up tables covered with seven symbolic items they call haft-seen. Haft means “seven” and “seen” is “s” in Farsi, and all of the items start with the letter.
These include seed sprouts (usually wheat, oats and other seeds, which symbolize rebirth), senjed (also known as silverberry or Persian olive, which is thought to spark love), garlic (protection), apple (fertility), sumac (love), vinegar (patience), and samanu, a pudding made of sprouted wheat (affluence). The table also can include a Koran, eggs, mirrors, and poetry.
Though Nowruz is old, the table tradition isn’t: As A. Shapur Shahbazi notes in Encyclopedia Iranica, it only came into effect in the last century.
Which countries celebrate Nowruz?
Nowruz is celebrated in many countries having significant Persian cultural influence like Iran, Iraq, India, Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia. Nowruz is celebrated by Kurds in Iraq and Turkey, as well as by the Iranis, Shias and Parsis in the Indian subcontinent and diaspora. Nowruz is also celebrated in the Americas and in Europe, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Toronto, Cologne and London by Iranian communities. In Phoenix, Arizona, Nowruz is celebrated as the Persian New Year Festival.
Nowruz celebrations in India
In India, the festival is observed around August 16-17 by Parsi community following the Shahenshahi calendar which does not account for leap years, which means the holiday has now moved by 200 days from its original day. However, many people also celebrate it in March.
History
The festival of Nowruz is named after the Persian king, Jamshed, who is credited for creating the Persian or the Shahenshahi calendar. As per the legend, Jamshed saved the world from an apocalypse that came in the form of a winter and destined to kill everyone. According to scriptures, in the realm of King Jamshed, there was no excessive heat or cold and no premature deaths and everyone lived happily. It is said that the festival came to India courtesy an 18th century wealthy tradesman from Surat, Nusservanji Kohyaji, who often travelled to Iran and began celebrating Nowruz in India.
The name of Nowruz does not occur until the second century AD in any Iranian records. We have reasons to believe that the celebration is much older than that date and was surely celebrated by the people and royalty during the Achaemenid times (555-330 BC). It has often been suggested that the famous Persepolis Complex, or at least the palaces of Apadana and Hundred Columns, were built for the specific purpose of celebrating Nowruz. However, no mention of the name of Nowruz exists in any Achaemenid inscription, a fact that can point to its non-Indo-European roots.
Our oldest records of Nowruz go back to the Arsacid/Parthian times (247 BC-224 AD). There are specific references to the celebration of Nowruz during the reign of Arsacid Emperor Vologases I (51-78 AD). Unfortunately, the lack of any substantial records about the reign of the Arsacids leaves us with little to explore about the details of Nowruz during their times.
After the accession of Ardeshir I Pabakan, the founder of the Sasanian Dynasty (224 AD), consistent data for the celebration of Nowruz were recorded. Throughout the Sasanian era (224-650 AD), Nowruz was celebrated as the most prominent ritual during the year. Most royal traditions of Nowruz such as yearly common audiences, cash gifts, and pardon of prisoners, were established during the Sasanian era and they persisted unchanged until the modern times.
Nowruz, along with Sadeh that is celebrated in mid-winter, were the two pre-Islamic celebrations that survived in the Islamic society after 650 AD. Other celebrations such Gahanbar and Mehragan were eventually side-lined or were only followed by the Zoroastrians who carried them as far as India. Nowruz, however, was most honoured even by the early founders of Islam. There are records of the Four Great Caliphs presiding over Nowruz celebrations, and during the Abbasid era, it was adopted as the main royal holiday.
Following the demise of the Caliphate and re-emergence of Iranian dynasties such as the Samanids and Buyids, Nowruz was elevated into an even more important event. The Buyids revived the ancient traditions of Sasanian times and restored many smaller celebrations that had been eliminated by the Caliphate. Even the Turkish and Mongol invaders of Iran did not attempt to abolish Nowruz in favour of any other celebration. Thus, Nowruz remained as the main celebration in the Iranian lands by both the officials and the people.
Nowruz is commonly perceived as the most “Iranian” of all celebrations, emphasising an Aryan/Indo-Iranian root for the celebration. However, the lack of any mention of Nowruz or the traditional, well-known celebrations associated with it in Achaemenid inscriptions as well as the oldest parts of the Avesta, the Old Iranian hymns of Zoroastrianism, can point to the non-Iranian roots of the celebration.
We know that the Sumerian and Babylonian calendars of the Mesopotamia were based on the changing of the seasons. The sedentary agriculture of Mesopotamia that served as the backbone of Babylonian economy greatly depended on the changing of the seasons and the amount of yearly downpour. Subsequently, the beginning of the spring mattered greatly in Mesopotamia and was celebrated accordingly.
There also existed an annual ritual in Babylonia when at the beginning of the spring the king was required to make a journey to the temple of Marduk and receive the regal signs from the god and give royal protection to the great god of Babylon. The yearly renewal of this mutual support seems to symbolize the renewal of life marked by the beginning of the spring.
We have decisive records of the adoption of this ritual by the Iranians when Cyrus the Great invaded Babylon and appointed his son, Cambyses, as his deputy there. On the other hand, the life style of Iranian tribes prior to their settlement in Iran was nomadic and greatly depended on cattle raising instead of sedentary agriculture, thus devoid of the need to keep exact track of seasonal change.
Their homeland, in the central Asian steppes, possessed either very cold winters or scorching summers and the arrival of spring seldom had the same effect as it does on the more temperate lands to the south. As a result, it is possible to conclude that the original roots of Nowruz laid in the Mesopotamian celebration of the arrival of spring and was later adopted by settled Iranian tribes, probably as early as the reign of the first Achaemenid emperor. It should be pointed out that if we accept this theory of adoption, we should not forget the certain Iranian characteristics that shaped this celebration into a distinctly Iranian custom.
Among the most prominent of these characteristics is the adaptation of Iranian world-view into the rituals of Nowruz. Although we have evidence that in the mid years of the Sasanian period, due to the neglect in maintaining the calendar, Nowruz was sometimes celebrated in the early summer or mid-winter, we should remember that the original place of Nowruz was always at the beginning of the spring. Different branches of Iranian Gnosticism that were popular in the late Sasanian and early Islamic era, most prominently displayed in Manichaeism, saw the world as a place of battle between the forces of good and evil. Manichaeism, and its Iranian roots in the religion of the Magi, defined darkness and cold as the signs of evil and lightness as the force of rightness. In fact, the most obvious characteristic of the Manichean deities is their extraction of light, a fact that later even influenced Christianity and its concept of halo. Thus, it was easy for most people to associate winter with forces of evil and see spring as the rebirth of light. Subsequently Nowruz was seen as the triumph of light over dark and the beginning of the rejuvenation of the world.
