raksha bandan

Raksha Bandhan, also Rakshabandhan,^[2] or Rakhi, is a popular, traditionally Hindu, annual rite which is central to a festival of the same name, and celebrated in South Asia, or among people of South Asian origin around the world. On this day, sisters of all ages tie a talisman, or amulet, called the rakhi, around the wrists of their brothers, ritually protecting them, receiving a gift in return, and traditionally investing the brothers with a share of the responsibility of their potential care.^[1] Differing versions of the rite have been traditionally performed by Hindus in northern India,^[3][4][5] western India,^[6] Nepal,^[7] and former colonies of the British Empire to which Hindus had emigrated from India in the 19th-century, and have included, in addition, rites with names rendered as Saluno,^[8][9]Silono,^[10] and Rakri.^[11] Raksha Bandhan is observed on the last day of the Hindu lunar calendar month of Shraavana, which typically falls in August. The expression "Raksha Bandhan," Sanskrit, literally, "the bond of protection, obligation, or care," is now principally applied to this ritual. Until the mid-20th-century, it was more commonly applied to a similar ritual in which a domestic priest ties amulets, charms, or threads on the wrists of his patrons and receives gifts of money; in some places, this is still the case.^[11][12] A ritual associated with Saluno includes the sisters placing shoots of barley behind the ears of their brothers.^[8]