Country is celebrating Durga Puja

NEW DELHI | 17th October, 2018

On Durga Puja India is celebrating this festival with joy and happiness. Different politicians and star extended there greetings to there followers on Durga Puja including Mannat Sharma, PM Modi, Congress party, Mamata Banerjee, Ashok Gehlot and many more people. Let us we know some facts about Durga Ashtmi.

Some Facts:

Durga Pooja is one of the most important festivals of Hindu. It is celebrated every year by the people of Hindu religion with great enthusiasm and belief. It is a religious festival which has various significances. It falls every year in the autumn season. During this festival, Goddess Durga is worshiped by the people for all nine days. At the end of festival the image goddess is immersed in the water of river or tank. Some people keep fast for all days, however some people keep fast only on first and last days. People believe that doing so will bring lots of blessings from goddess Durga. They believe that Durga mata will keep them away from all the problems and negative energy.

Goddess Durga is worshipped all nine days of the festival. However days of worship varies according to the place. Devotees of Mata Durga keep fast for all nine days or only first and last days. They decorate and worship the statue of goddess by offering Prasad, jal, kumkum, nariyal, sindoor, etc according to the capacity with great devotion. Everywhere looks very beautiful and environment becomes clean and pure. It seems that really goddess Durga makes a round to everyone home and blesses Her devotees. It is believed that worshipping Mata provides delight, prosperity, removes darkness and evil power. Generally people perform puja for three days (called as Saptami, Astami and Navami) after keeping fast for long 6, 7, and 8 days. They offer food, fruit and dakshina to the seven or nine unmarried girls in the morning in the clean manner in order to make goddess Durga happy.

Due to the people’s negligence, it impacts the environment to a huge level. The materials used in making and coloring (such as cement, plaster of Paris, plastic, toxic paints, etc) the sculptures of Mata Durga causes pollution to the local water resources. The immersion of the statues directly pollutes the river water at the end of festival. In order to reduce the environment impacts of this festival, there should be efforts from everyone’s end that the use of eco-friendly materials by the artisans in making statues, devotees should not immerse the statues directly in Ganga water and search out some safe ways to perform the rituals of this festival. Commercialization of the Hindu festivals in the 20th century has created major environmental issues.

Story and Legends of Durga Puja

There are various stories and legends of Durga puja which are mentioned below:

• It is considered as, once there was a demon king, Mahishasura, who was ready to attack on Gods of heaven. He was too powerful to defeat from God. Then an eternal power was created by the Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh which was named as Durga (a magnificent woman having ten hands with special weapons in each). She was given eternal power to destroy demon Mahishasura. Finally She killed that demon on tenth day called as Dussehra or Vijayadashami.

• Another legend behind Durga puja is Lord Rama. According to the Ramayana, Ram had performed a chandi-puja in order to get blessings of mata Durga to kill Ravana. Rama had killed Ravana on tenth day of Durga puja called as Dussehra or Vijayadashami. So, Durga puja is the symbol of victory of goodness over evil power forever.

• Once Kautsa (son of Devdatt) has decided to offer gurudakshina to his guru named Varatantu after completing his education however he was asked to pay 14 crore gold coins (one for each 14 sciences he studied there). In order to get the same he went to the king Raghuraj (ancestor of Rama) however he was unable because of the Vishvajit sacrifice. So, Kautsa went to Lord Indra and he again summoned Kuber (god of wealth) to rain the required gold coins over “shanu” and “apati” trees in Ayodhya. In this way, Kautsa got gold coins to offer to his guru. That event is still remembered through a custom of looting leaves of the “apati” trees. At this day, people gift these leaves to each other as a gold coin.

(Copyright by Indian celebrating web site)

The Youth India extends our wishings to all on Durga Puja !!