Durga puja
Durga Puja ( Bengali : দুর্গাপূজা , durgāpūjā ) is the festival in Hinduism in honor of the goddess Durga . She is probably the most popular form of the goddess that exists in different manifestations, benevolent as well as punitive.
According to the Hindu lunar calendar, Durga Puja is celebrated at the end of September or in October. Especially in Bengal , Assam and Hindu Nepal , where the same festival is called Dasain , people celebrate it for ten days. In West Bengal with the capital Kolkata it is even the most important festival of the whole year. In other parts of India people celebrate the goddess at the same time, but under a different name, such as Amba, mother earth. You also celebrate other customs and know a different mythological background. The festival is called Navaratri or Navaratra (festival of the nine nights). In the north of India the same festival as Dashahara or Vijaya-Dashami (Ten Victory Days ) is dedicated to Rama , an incarnation of Vishnu .
The importance of Durga Puja does not only apply to the religious aspect, it is also an important social event in the course of the year. In all villages and cities, people celebrate the arrival of the goddess with concerts, dance dramas and magnificent processions. Festively dressed people stroll through the streets. Everyone gives gifts to friends and relatives; Equipping servants and helpers with new clothes is a must. Housewives cook celebratory meals and make special sweets.
The places of celebration are not the temples, but the centers of daily life: Everywhere in the freshly spruced up houses and courtyards, in event tents or even across the street, people set up small or large altars, with a stage in front of each. If the daily service is over during the holidays, individual singers or groups sing traditional songs, but even pop musicians give their best. The music often booms through the whole place through huge loudspeakers until after midnight.
Originally only the rich celebrated the festival and invited everyone else to join, today it is usually a community festival. Everyone who can take part in the preparations: each group, each association builds its own altar, organizes events, and the neighbors also get together. Schoolchildren go from house to house in small groups and armed with signature lists they collect the necessary money - while mostly young boys and men build the scaffolding for the altar and stage using bamboo poles and cloths. Everyone tries to outdo the other's events in terms of beauty, originality and pomp. Competitions select the most beautiful Durga statues.
Durga statues are for sale weeks in advance in shops and on street corners - in all price ranges, small and large. Traditional craftsmen make them with a framework made of straw, on which they model and paint the traditional forms made of clay.
myth
The mythological background is passed down in the Devi Mahatmya , part of the Markandeya Purana , as well as in the Devi Bhagavata . These are the two most important scriptures for the worshipers of the goddess and belong to the Puranas . Accordingly, she slew the buffalo demons (sanskr .: Mahishasura ) along with his army in battle . She appeared at the request of the heavenly devas terrorized by Mahishasura. Through harsh asceticism , meditation and prayer , Brahma had granted him the wish that he would only find death by the hand of a woman. Since he did not trust any woman to have this ability, he became more and more power-hungry and in his boundless arrogance rose up to become the ruler of heaven. Everyone should worship him. Shiva and Vishnu became angry when they heard of the demons' activities and in their anger a bright light sprang from their faces, which merged with the lights from the bodies of the other heavenly ones and took the form of a beautiful woman. Shiva and Vishnu as well as all the other heavenly ones gave her weapons: Shiva gave a second out of his trident, Vishnu a second from his disc and each of the heavenly devas gave an exact copy of his emblem. From Surya , the sun, she received the shining rays that shine from all the pores of her skin - Kala, the time, gave a sword, the Himalayas a magnificent lion as a mount. The Devi-Mahatmya describes her as “radiant above earth, her immeasurable splendor penetrated the three worlds, her feet bent the earth and her crown touched the sky. With her thousand arms she penetrated the universe ” . Eventually the goddess went into battle "with a loud roaring laugh" , the mountains swayed, the universe shook and the seas overflowed. The demon constantly changed its forms during the fight, was buffalo, lion, elephant - until she finally defeated him in his buffalo form.
rite
The first of ten days is Mahalaya , a kind of Advent: at daybreak you get up, take your ceremonial bath and put on fresh clothes. Many go to the Ganges for the bath, commemorate their ancestors and pray for their deliverance. Then, with fervent prayers and chants, the goddess is asked to come to earth. Whereas in the past it was singers who knew all the hymns by heart, in modern India the radio or cassette recorder has usually taken their place.
From Panchami , the fifth day, the focus is on Durga, holding weapons in her ten hands, radiantly beautifully decorated - triumphantly riding the lion, at her feet the beaten buffalo demon. Her four “children” stand next to her in a smaller form: the elephant-headed Ganesha , Saraswati , Lakshmi and Kartikeya riding a peacock . Symbolically, these stand for Durga's aspects.
From the fifth day on, the priest comes every day for the service. The prescribed ceremony lasts a few hours but is often shortened as the priest has to go to many houses. Nowadays, this task is often done by others who are not priests but can speak Sanskrit, the language of the rite. The ceremony symbolically recreates the battle between the goddess and the buffalo demon Mahishasura, each day dealing with a specific section.
Before Durga is worshiped in the statue, however, she is embodied in various plants: First she is in the Bel tree (also Vilva tree), which is sacred to Shiva . Then a banana plant represents the goddess; Women wrap them in a sari and carry them to the altar to loud cheers. Finally the priest blackened the statue's eyes with kohl made of soot; With mantras and mudras , certain hand gestures, he asks the goddess to take her place in the portrait - and only now is she "alive", according to Hindu belief, is present in the man-made work of art.
Every day the priest “wakes” Durga with prayers, a hand bell and the roaring sound of the conch horn. An important part of the puja is the “bath”, for which a mirror is used: the priest holds it in front of the statue, then takes it with the imaginary image in it and ritually washes it in a small copper bowl instead of the actual statue. The bath water is enriched with many ingredients: In addition to various types of water such as rain, dew, river water, spring water, pond water, etc. also various medicinal herbs and a piece of bark from five trees. Also important is the earth of twelve places - not only from the river bank, but also from the anthill, from a wagon track, from the hoof print of a horse, earth from the courtyard of a court and even from the door of a prostitute.
Furthermore, the priest offers drinks and food as sacrifices, the Prasad, every day - grain, fruits, herbs, honey, butter, yogurt, milk, water. Everything a woman needs is one of the gifts: In a bridal basket he presents a saree, jewelry, make-up, perfume, sandel paste, coins, mirrors, unpeeled rice grains, barley and mustard seeds. Finally, he decorates them with garlands of flowers. In the evening, after the last sacrifice, he covers the altar with a delicate cloth; like humans, the goddess would like to "sleep".
On the eighth day, Ashtami , the festivities come to a climax - the battle against the Asura , which is simulated in the service with small flags, is over. The goddess is now worshiped in the form of a great light with sixty-four wicks, as a sign of her sixty-four appearances and her victory over evil.
Dashami , the tenth day, also called Dashahara or Vijaya , "day of victory", brings the farewell. This day is especially dedicated to married women: each one goes to the altar individually, waves the butter lamp in front of Durga, smears them with Sindur , the red powder, and asks them to come back next year. She dabs the same color blessing the other women on the forehead and bracelet and wishes "Happy Vijaya".
In small and large parades, on trucks with the large statues, in the hand or on the luggage rack of the bicycle, the people escort Durga to the river or the nearest pond. Mostly she accompanies the whole community with music and high-spirited dancing through the streets. Many passers-by stop smiling or pause with closed eyes, hands folded in greeting. The statue is thrown into the water to cheers.
Most of the unofficial scenes that follow are instructive. They make it clear that the statues themselves are not considered divine: even before they sink into the water, young men and boys who have followed the action from a distance hurry up. With their loincloth rolled up to their knees, they stand in the water and use long rods to fish the figures out again. Now they are nothing more than clay figures that can be sold again in the next year.
In addition to the superficial meaning, all the utensils used in the rite have other, multi-layered levels of meaning , with which philosophically and religiously interested believers grapple, especially during the festive season. The hymns from the Devi Mahatmya are well-known prayers in honor of the goddess.
