As the Bhavishya Purana tells it
Bhavishya Purana, Uttara Parva 132 · Ayodhya · 2 min read
Yudhishthira asked Krishna why, on the full moon of Phalguna, people light a fire in every village and town, and why the children are allowed to shout whatever they like. Krishna told him this story.
Long ago, in the first age of the world, King Raghu ruled in Ayodhya. His people were happy and his granaries were full, until one morning a crowd stood weeping in his courtyard.
"King, an ogress comes into our houses at night," they said. "Her name is Dhundha. She frightens our children and torments them, and we cannot stop her. Our doors do not keep her out. Our prayers do not keep her out."
Raghu sent for his priest, the sage Vasishtha. "Who is this Dhundha," he asked, "and how is she to be killed?"
"She is the daughter of the demon Malin," said Vasishtha. "She sat in penance until Shiva came to her, and she asked for a hard boon. Gods cannot kill her, nor men, nor any weapon. Cold cannot kill her, nor heat, nor rain, by day or by night. Shiva granted it all. But as he went, he said one more thing. 'You will always have reason to fear children, and people who have lost their wits in play.' That is the door she left open."
"Then what must we do?" asked the king.
"The full moon of Phalguna is near," said the sage. "On that day the winter goes and the summer comes. Let the children of the city go out of their houses without fear, carrying sticks and bits of wood like little soldiers. Let them gather a great heap of dry wood and cow dung cakes in the open ground. At nightfall let the heap be lit with the verses that drive off demons. Then everyone must go round the fire three times, clapping their hands, laughing and singing, beating drums and shouting whatever comes into their heads. Let nobody scold them that night. The noise of children is the one weapon she was never given."
Raghu gave the order. On the night of the full moon the children of Ayodhya came running out with their sticks. They piled up the wood, the fire went up, and they went round it shouting and singing and banging anything that would make a sound. The grown men and women clapped and sang with them, as wildly as they dared.
Dhundha heard it from wherever she was hiding. She could not bear it. The children's noise burned her worse than the fire, and she fled from the city and was never seen there again. Some tellers say she ran into the flames.
So, said Krishna, the fire is lit every year on that night and worshipped with a verse: "Holi, you were made by little children who were afraid of the blood drinkers. So I worship you. Be a giver of good fortune to us."
As the north tells it: Dhundhi and the boys
North India · 1 min read
In the villages of the north the ogress is called Dhundhi, and the king in whose land she lived is sometimes Prithu and sometimes Raghu.
Dhundhi had pleased Shiva and won her boon, and with it she troubled the whole country, children above all. She spoiled food, she brought sickness, and nobody could lay a hand on her. But Shiva had also put a curse on her, the villagers say: the boys of the place would get the better of her one day.
So the boys of the village made a plan. For days beforehand they went from house to house asking for wood, and nobody dared to send them away empty handed, because everyone knew what the wood was for. On the night of the Phalguna full moon they collected every stick and log and cow dung cake they could carry and built a bonfire. When it was burning they came out in a gang, banging pots and drums, playing tricks on anyone who passed, shouting rude words and singing rude songs, and chasing after the ogress until she could not stand it any longer. She left that country and never came back.
That, the old people say, is why on Holi night the boys are allowed to be loud and rude, and why the songs round the fire are not songs for the temple. In Gujarat and Rajasthan a baby's first Holi is kept with a rite called dhundh, after her, and the child is carried round the fire so that no Dhundhi can touch it that year.