The Kanduri Bu — the “Rice-kanduri” — is the Achehnese popular name for the eighth month of the Mohammedan year, Shaʽban. Throughout the whole of the Indian Archipelago this month is dedicated to the commemoration of the dead. “This does not imply grief for their loss,” as C. Snouck Hurgronje explains, “but rather care for their souls’ repose, which is not inconsistent with merrymaking. This solicitude for the welfare of the departed exhibits itself by the giving of religious feasts. According to the official or learned conception this is done in order to bestow on the deceased the recompense earned by this good work; according to the popular notion it is to let them enjoy the actual savour of the good things of the feast.” The name of the month in many native languages is borrowed from this pious custom: in Javanese it is called Ruwaḥ — “month of all spirits” — and in Achehnese Kanduri Bu, “since on some one day of this month every household holds in honour of the departed a religious feast, in which rice forms the principal dish.”
Rice is, indeed, the chief comestible in many other kanduris and in purely secular feasts, but in Acheh the name of “religious rice feast” is specially given to the kanduris in honour of the dead, whether in the 8th or in other months. “Whenever any chance occurrence inclines them to show their ancestors that they are not forgotten, the people cook rice and its accessories and invite the teungku to consecrate an occasional kanduri with his prayers. This is called simply ‘having recitations made over rice’ (peu beu’ët bu), and the prayer most in use on such occasions is called du’a beu’ët bu — ‘prayer to be offered over rice.’ This is called in Java the prayer of tombs, since it begins with the words ‘Oh Allah, let mercy descend on the dwellers in the tombs.’” The most ignorant recite in its place the fatihah or first chapter of the Quran, which every child knows by heart.
Each family has its “recitation over the rice” during the month of Kanduri Bu on whatever day best suits its convenience. “This is done for the benefit of the dead (the ureu’ëng chè’ or ancestors as they are called) and also for that of the living, whose prosperity is according to the popular belief directly dependent on the respect they pay to the dead. It is said for example that anyone who had his worldly wealth increased by the inheritance of a dead man’s property, would quickly lose this profit if he neglected to celebrate the kanduri bu with the requisite pomp and circumstance in the same year.” The adat requires that the teungku meunasah be invited to this feast. He can either recite the prayer himself or empower another to do so. The Javanese custom of clearing the graves of ancestors and rehabilitating their exterior during the month of Shaʽban is unknown in Acheh, “where the resting places of the dead are neglected to such a degree that it is difficult to find them in the third generation. In Acheh too, the feasts of all souls are always held at home, while in Java people assemble for this purpose at the burial-places.”
The choice of the eighth month for this commemoration, which in Arabia generally takes place in the seventh month, seems to Hurgronje “a further corroboration of the introduction of Islam into Acheh from the Deccan.” The special sanctity of the “night of the middle of Shaʽban,” called malam beureu’at in Acheh (in the Deccan Shab-i-barat), is believed in by all Mohammedans. “It is supposed that on that particular night Allah determines the fate of mortals during the forthcoming year. The most popular idea is that there is a celestial tree of symbolic import, on which every human being has a leaf to represent him. This tree is shaken during the night preceding the 15th of Shaʽban, causing the leaves of all those who are to die during the coming year to fall.” In Arabia many watch through a part or the whole of this night; in Acheh such a prayer is offered only by the special representatives of religion, while “most of the adult males celebrate this night by a small and simple kanduri (kanduri beureu’ë’at) in the meunasah of their gampong.”
Additional account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Kanduri Bu (Sha’ban, Vol. I)
The Kanduri Bu — the “kanduri of rice” — is the Achehnese popular name for the eighth month of the Mohammedan year, Shaʽban. The name, like those of most Achehnese months, is drawn from the religious offering characteristic of the period: on some one day of this month, every household holds in honour of the departed a feast at which rice is the principal dish. As C. Snouck Hurgronje observes, the Achehnese names of the Mohammedan months exhibit a distinct preference for these kanduri-derived designations, so that the calendar reads less as a succession of Arabic names than as a cycle of pious feasts — Mo’lot Seumeulheueh, Kanduri Boh Kaye’e, Kanduri Apam, Kanduri Bu, and so on through the year.
In the Achehnese calendar of festivals the month of Kanduri Bu is principally dedicated, throughout the Indian Archipelago, to the commemoration of the dead. The choice of the eighth month for this commemoration, which in Arabia generally takes place in the seventh, is regarded by Hurgronje as “a further corroboration of the introduction of Islam into Acheh from the Deccan,” where the corresponding feast of Shab-i-barat is similarly observed in mid-Shaʽban. Each family chooses its own day for the peu beu’ët bu — the “recitation over rice” — at which the teungku meunasah is invited to consecrate the meal with the du’a beu’ët bu, the prayer for the dwellers in the tombs. The same observance is paralleled in Java by the Ruwaḥ season of grave-clearing, a practice unknown in Acheh, where the resting places of the dead are notoriously neglected.
A second important aspect of Kanduri Bu, recorded by Hurgronje in his chapter on marriage, is the reputation of the month as a propitious time for weddings. Together with Mo’lot (Rabiʽ al-awwal) and Abdë Mo’lot (Rabiʽ al-akhir), Kanduri Bu is “regarded as a lucky month” for the celebration of marriage, and the 6th, 14th and 22nd days of the month are considered especially propitious. This association of Shaʽban with both the dead and the newly-wed is characteristic of the Achehnese religious imagination, in which the same month may be at once a season of ancestor-rites and a favoured time for the contracting of new households.
The middle of the month is further marked by the malam beureu’at — the night preceding the 15th of Shaʽban — on which Allah is believed to determine the fate of mortals for the coming year. This night, known in the Deccan as Shab-i-barat, is commemorated in Acheh by the small and simple Kanduri beureu’at held by most adult males in the meunasah of their gampong. The calendar position of the kanduri beureu’at within the larger month of Kanduri Bu neatly illustrates how the Achehnese year is structured by nested observances — a month of the dead, a night of fate, and a daily round of family offerings, all gathered under the single name of the rice-kanduri.
See Also
- Kanduri (general)
- Kanduri Apam
- Great Feast of Sacrifices)
- Tahlil
- Peuleukat (Talqin)
- Asan-Usen
- Kanduri Boh Kaye’e
- Kanduri beureu’at
- Mo’lot Seumeulheueh
- Meunasah
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.