Why the Rooster Crows Before Dawn

In the Tharu villages of Dang, the old grandmothers say that long ago the rooster did not crow. The sun rose in silence, and many mornings it rose late because there was no one to summon it.

This caused great problems. Farmers overslept their fields. Mothers missed market. The god of the sun grew lazy and sometimes lingered in his bed beneath the eastern mountains until midmorning.

A Tharu farmer named Dhaniram decided to fix this. He climbed to the top of the tallest silk-cotton tree in the village, sat there all night, and when he saw the faintest grey thread appear on the eastern horizon, he shouted with all his strength.

The sun, startled, leapt straight up into the sky.

Dhaniram did this every morning for a year. He grew hoarse, then got his voice back, then grew hoarse again. But the sun was now reliable.

When Dhaniram finally grew too old to climb the tree, he worried the sun would be late again. So he sat beside his rooster and taught him the sound — the precise pitch and