Durga Puja

The annual Hindu festival of Durga Puja, also known by the names Durgotsava or Sharodotsava, is celebrated in India to honour the Hindu goddess Durga and to commemorate her victory over Mahishasura. The Hindu Bengali community celebrates it all over the world, but it is especially well-liked and traditionally observed in Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Tripura, Odisha, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh.

The event is celebrated during the month of Ashwin on the Hindu calendar, which falls between September and October on the Gregorian calendar. The final five days of the ten-day Durga Puja festival are the most important.

Both private houses and public locations hold the puja, with the latter hosting a temporary stage and structural decorations. Moreover, scripture recitals, live performances, celebration, gift-giving, family get-togethers, feasting, and public processions are all part of the holiday. A significant event in the Shaktism school of Hinduism is Durga Puja.

History and Origins

According to the archaeological and textual evidence that is now accessible, Durga is a traditional Hindu deity. The history of Durga Puja, however, is unknown and unrecorded. Guidelines for Durga Puja can be found in surviving 14th-century documents, and historical records indicate that wealthy families and monarchy have sponsored significant Durga Puja public celebrations from at least the 16th century. The 11th or 12th-century Jain work Yasatilaka by Somadeva recalls an annual festival dedicated to a warrior goddess, celebrated by the king and his armed soldiers, and the description resembles aspects of Durga Puja. Durgi, a deity from the Taittiriya Aranyaka, makes an appearance. Although if the word Durga is used in Vedic literature, the depiction of her or of Durga Puja is devoid of the legendary information that can be found in later Hindu literature.

Devi Mahatmya is a prominent scripture spoken during Durga Puja and is a significant text related with the festival. By the time this Hindu text was written, which experts place in the range of 400 to 600 CE, Durga was probably well-known. The Devi Mahatmya canon defines the nature of the evil powers represented by Mahishasura as being shape-shifting, cunning, and adaptable in nature, form, and strategy to cause problems and therefore achieve their wicked aims. In order to accomplish her solemn objectives, Durga calmly comprehends the evil and combats it.In the Hindu literature, Durga appears as a separate deity in all of her different forms. Both the Mahabharata protagonists Yudhisthira and Arjuna evoke Durga songs. She makes an appearance in Pradyumna’s supplication and Vishnu’s eulogy in Harivamsa. The epics’ frequent mention of Durga may be what inspired her veneration.

Rituals and Practices

The final five days of Durga Puja, a ten-day celebration, contain specific rites and traditions. The event starts on Mahalaya, a day when Hindus practisetarpaa by making offerings of food and water to their deceased ancestors. The day also commemorates Durga’s departure from her mythical marital residence in Kailash. The sixth day of the festival, when worshippers welcome the goddess and the festivities begin, is the next important day. othrThe goddess, along with Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesha, and Kartikeya, are revered on the seventh, eighth, and ninth days. These days mark the main days of worship with scripture recitation, puja, stories from the Devi Mahatmya about Durga, and social outings to lavishly decorated and illuminated pandals, among other activities.

A post-monsoon harvest festival known as Durga Puja is partially observed on the same days in Hinduism’s Shaktism tradition as in its other traditions. A testament to its agricultural significance is the tradition of using a bundle of nine different plants, known as navapatrika, as a symbol of Durga. The typical plant selections comprise non-crops as well as key crop representatives. This possibly symbolizes the Hindu idea that the goddess is “not simply the power inherent in the growth of crops but the power inherent in all flora”.

In India’s eastern and northeastern states, where temporary pandals are erected in town squares, roadside shrines, and temples, the festival is a social and public event that dominates religious and sociocultural life. Some Shakta Hindus also celebrate the holiday in their homes on their own. Around dusk, prayers to Saraswati signal the beginning of the festival. She is thought to be another incarnation of the goddess Durga, who is the source of all internal and exterior activity in everything and everywhere. Also, the goddesses’ eyes on the representational clay sculpture idols are often painted on this day to give them a more lifelike aspect. The day also honours Ganesha prayers and pandal temple visits.

The goddess and her incarnations, including Kumari, Mai (mother), Ajima (grandmother), Lakshmi (goddess of riches), and in some regions the Saptamatrikas (seven mothers) or Navadurga, are remembered from days two to five. Major celebrations and social events begin on the sixth day. The first nine days coincide with Navaratri celebrations in other Hindu traditions. Mantras (words that reveal spiritual transformation), shlokas (holy verses), chants and arati, and donations are all part of the puja ceremonies. Vedic chants and Sanskrit readings of the Devi Mahatmya book are also among them. The mantras and shlokas extol the divinity of the goddess; the shlokas declare Durga to be omnipresent as the embodiment of strength, sustenance, memory, forbearance, faith, forgiveness, intellect, wealth, emotions, desires, beauty, satisfaction, righteousness, fulfilment, and peace.