Why is the twilight called the ‘hour of cowdust’ in India?
Answers
FOR many countries in Indian history there was no city so famous as the city of Ujjain. It was always renowned as the seat of learning. Here lived at one time the poet Kalidasa, one of the supreme poets of the world, fit to be named with Homer and Dante and Shakespeare. And here worked and visited, only a hundred and fifty years ago, an Indian king, who was also a great and learned astronomer, the greatest of his day, Rajah Jay Singh of Jaipur. So one can see what a great love all who care for India must feel for the ancient city of Ujjain.
But deep in the hearts of the Indian people, one name is held even dearer than those I have mendoned -- the name of Vikramaditya, who became King of Malwa, it is said, in the year 57 before Christ. How many, many years ago must that be! But so dearly is he remembered, that to this day when a Hindu wants to write a letter, after putting something religious at the top -- "The Name of the Lord," or "Call on the Lord," or something of the sort -- and after writing his address, as we all do in beginning a letter, when he states the date, he would not say, "of the year of the Lord 1900," for instance, meaning 1900 years after Christ, as we might, but he would say of the year 1957 of The Era of Vikramaditya."
Answer:
Cowherds take cattle for grazing in the morning, and when the day ends, they come back. It is the time of the sunset, and it is called twilight. When they come back, they raise a storm of dust by their feet, and the dust rises high like a cloud. That is why the twilight is called cowdust in India.
Explanation: