Durga Puja
Durga Puja, also known as Durgotsava or Sharadotsava, is a major Hindu festival honouring the goddess Durga and commemorating her victory over Mahishasura. In 2021, 'Durga Puja in Kolkata' was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The festival is observed in the Indian calendar in the month of Ashvin on the Hindu luni-solar calendar. It lasts ten days, with the final five being most prominent. Even though Durga Puja and Navaratri are both dedicated to the Hindu goddess Durga and are observed simultaneously, they are not the same festival.
The puja is performed in homes and public spaces with temporary structures , religious recitations, cultural performances, visiting, feasting, and processions; it is central to the Shaktism tradition.
Scriptures portray Durga's defeat of Mahishasura, often interpreted as the triumph of good over evil; some traditions also link the festival with post-monsoon harvest themes. Durga Puja coincides with Navaratri and Dussehra celebrations observed by other traditions of Hinduism.
Alongside Durga, devotees commonly venerate Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesha and Kartikeya. Major public celebrations run from Mahalaya to Vijayadashami and conclude with immersion of the images; practices vary by region.
Durga Puja is an old tradition with medieval textual references on Shaktism and detailed manuals from at least the 14th century; elite and community forms expanded under early modern and colonial patronage.
Names
In West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, Jharkhand and Tripura, Durga Puja is also called Akalbodhan, Sharadiya pujo or puja, Sharodotsab, Maha pujo, Maayer pujo, Durga pujo, or merely Puja or Pujo. In Bangladesh, Durga Puja has historically been celebrated as Bhagabati puja. Maa Durga is known as the Goddess of Power which represents triumph of Goodness over evil.Durga Puja is also referred to by the names of related Shakta Hindu festivals such as Navaratri, celebrated on the same days elsewhere in India; such as in Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala, and Maharashtra; Kullu Dussehra, celebrated in Kullu Valley, Himachal Pradesh; Mysore Dasara celebrated in Mysore, Karnataka; Bommai Golu, celebrated in Tamil Nadu; Bommala Koluvu, celebrated in Andhra Pradesh; and Bathukamma, celebrated in Telangana.
History and origins
Durga is an ancient goddess of Hinduism according to available archeological and textual evidence. However, the origins of Durga Puja are unclear and undocumented.File:Dadhimati Mata Temple, Rajasthan.jpg|thumb|left|The Dadhimati Mata Temple of Rajasthan preserves a Durga-related inscription from chapter 10 of Devi Mahatmya. The temple inscription has been dated by modern methods to 608 CE.
The name Durga, and related terms, appear in Vedic literature, such as in the Rigveda hymns 4.28, 5.34, 8.27, 8.47, 8.93 and 10.127, and in sections 10.1 and 12.4 of the Atharvaveda A deity named Durgi appears in section 10.1.7 of the Taittiriya Aranyaka. While the Vedic literature uses the word Durga, the description therein lacks legendary details about her or about Durga Puja that is found in later Hindu literature.
A key text associated with Durga Puja is Devi Mahatmya, which is recited during the festival. Durga was likely a well-established deity by the time this Hindu text was composed, which scholars estimate to date between 400 and 600 CE. The Devi Mahatmya scripture describes the nature of evil forces symbolised by Mahishasura as shape-shifting, deceptive, and adapting in nature, in form and in strategy to create difficulties and thus achieve their evil ends. Durga calmly understands and counters the evil in order to achieve her solemn goals.Durga, in her various forms, appears as an independent deity in the Indian texts.
In the Mahabharata, both Yudhisthira and Arjuna invoke hymns to Durga. She appears in Harivamsa in the form of Vishnu's eulogy and in Pradyumna's prayer. The prominent mention of Durga in such epics may have led to her worship.
Some versions of the Puranas mention Durga Puja to be a spring festival, while the Devi-Bhagavata Purana and two other Shakta Puranas mentions it to be an autumn festival. The Ramayana manuscripts are also inconsistent. Versions of Ramayana found in the north, west, and south of the Indian subcontinent describe Rama to be remembering Surya before his battle against Ravana, but the Bengali manuscripts of Ramayana, such as the Krittivasi Ramayana, a 15th-century manuscript by Krittivasa, mention Rama to be worshipping Durga. As per the legend, Rama worshipped Durga in the autumn to have her blessings before defeating Ravana. While he was preparing for the worship of the goddess, Durga hid one of the 108 flowers of lotus, very essential for her worship. Having found only 107 of 108 lotuses at the time of the worship, Rama decided to offer one of his eyes in place of that lotus. When he was about to offer his eye, Durga appeared and told him that she had only hidden the flower in order to test his devotion and she was satisfied with it. She blessed Rama and he continued with her worship. Since the gods are believed to be sleeping during autumn, the awakening rite of the Durga puja is also known as akāla bodhana.
Surviving manuscripts from the 14th-century provide guidelines for Durga Puja, while historical records suggest the royalty and wealthy families to be sponsoring major Durga Puja public festivities, since at least the 16th-century. The 11th or 12th-century Jain text Yasatilaka by Somadeva mentions an annual festival dedicated to a warrior goddess, celebrated by the king and his armed forces, and the description mirrors attributes of Durga Puja.
According to some scholars, the worship of the fierce warrior goddess Durga, and her darker and more violent manifestation Kali, became popular in the Bengal region during and after the medieval era, marked by Muslim invasions and conquests.
The significance of Durga and other goddesses in Hindu culture is stated to have increased after Islamic armies conquered regions of the Indian subcontinent. According to yet other scholars, the marginalisation of Bengali Hindus during the medieval era led to a reassertion of Hindu identity and an emphasis on Durga Puja as a social festival, publicly celebrating the warrior goddess.From the medieval era up to present-day, Durga Puja has been celebrated as a socio-cultural event, while maintaining the roots of religious worship.
Rituals and practices
Texts
The puja rituals involve mantras, shlokas, chants and arati, and offerings. The worship begins with a reading of the Sanskrit Devī Mahātmya from the sixth-century Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa. The shlokas and mantras praise the divinity of the goddess; according to the shlokas, Durga is omnipresent as the embodiment of power, success, courage, victory, nourishment, memory, forbearance, faith, forgiveness, intellect, wealth, emotions, desires, beauty, satisfaction, righteousness, fulfilment and peace.Relation to harvest
Durga Puja is, in part, a post-monsoon harvest festival observed on the same days in the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism as those in its other traditions. The practice of including a bundle of nine different plants, called navapatrika, as a symbolism of Durga, is a testament practice to its agricultural importance. Many people think Nabapatrika is just a banana tree wrapped like a bride, often called “Kolabou”. In reality, it is a sacred combination of nine plants, each representing a form of divine energy and cosmic force. The typically selected plants include not only representative important crops, but also non-crops. This probably signifies the Hindu belief that the goddess is "not merely the power inherent in the growth of crops but the power inherent in all vegetation".The festival is a social and public event in the eastern and northeastern states of India, where it dominates religious and socio-cultural life, with temporary pandals built at community squares, roadside shrines, and temples. The festival is also observed by some Shakta Hindus as a private home-based festival.
Before Durga puja there is Paata Puja, the ritual of making an idol on the day of the Rath Yatra, usually around July. 'Paata' is the wooden frame that forms the base for the idols.
Day One
Durga Puja is a ten-day event. The festival begins with Mahalaya, a day on which Hindus perform tarpaṇa by offering water and food to their dead ancestors. The day also marks the arrival of Durga from her marital home in Kailash.The festival starts at twilight with prayers to Saraswati. She is believed to be another aspect of goddess Durga. This is also the day when the eyes are painted of the deities on the representative clay sculpture-idols, bringing them to a lifelike appearance. The day also marks prayers to Ganesha and visit to pandals and temples.
Day Two to Five
Day two to five mark the remembrance of the goddess and her manifestations, such as Kumari, Mai, Ajima, Lakshmi and in some regions as the Saptamatrikas or Navadurga. On the sixth day major festivities and social celebrations start. The first nine days overlap with Navaratri festivities in other traditions of Hinduism.The specific practices vary by region.Day Six to Nine
The next significant day of the festival is the sixth day, on which devotees welcomes the goddess and festive celebrations are inaugurated. Rituals typically performed on the sixth day include:Bodhana: Involves rites to awaken and welcome the goddess to be a guest. The amorphous sight of the goddess is consecrated into a ghata or noggin while the visible sight is consecrated into the murti or idol. These rituals are known as ghatasthapana and pranapratistha respectively.
Adhivasa: Anointing ritual wherein symbolic offerings are made to Durga, with each item representing a remembrance of subtle forms of her.
On the seventh day, eighth and ninth days, the goddess along with Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesha, and Kartikeya are revered and these days mark the main days of worship with recitation of scriptures, puja, legends of Durga in Devi Mahatmya, social visits to elaborately decorated and illuminated pandals, among others.
- Navapatrika snan: Bathing of the navapatrika with holy water done on the seventh day of the festival.
- Sandhi puja and Ashtami pushpanjali: The eighth day begins with elaborate pushpanjali rituals. The cusp of the ending of the eighth day and beginning of the ninth day is considered to be the moment when per scriptures Durga engaged in a fierce battle against Mahishasura and was attacked by the demons Chanda and Munda. Goddess Chamunda emerged from the third eye of Durga and killed Chanda and Munda at the cusp of Ashtami and Navami, the eighth and ninth days respectively. This moment is marked by the sandhi puja, involving the offering of 108 lotuses and lighting of 108 lamps. It is a forty-eight minutes long ritual commemorating the climax of battle. The rituals are performed in the last 24 minutes of Ashtami and the first 24 minutes of Navami. In some regions, devotees sacrifice an animal such as a buffalo or goat, but in many regions, there is not an actual animal sacrifice and a symbolic sacrifice substitutes it. The surrogate effigy is smeared in red vermilion to symbolise the blood spilled. The goddess is then offered food. Some places also engage in devotional service.
- and : The ninth day of festival is marked with the rituals and. Some places also perform on this day.