Burning One Hundred Thousands Wicks

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

Ramesh has pledged the burning of one hundred thousand wicks to Lord Karya Vinayak, and Goddess Bagalamukhi and Lord Ashok Vinayak in other words Maru Ganesh for the favor of those deities in getting the job he has applied for.

He believes that Lord Karya Vinayak is the deity for making the success of anybody’s efforts on anything such as getting job and so on. So, believing that Karya Vinayak will help him in the major efforts he is gong to make for a significant gain in the life, he makes a pledge of making an offering of one hundred thousand burning wicks to Karya Vinayak for the success in his efforts. Such an offering is one of many different offerings Nepalis make to the deity.

He believes that Goddess Bagalamukhi is another deity for meeting anybody’s desire. So, believing the goddess will meet his desire for the success in his efforts, he makes a pledge to burn one hundred thousands wicks at her temple on the premises pf Khumbhesvore Mahadev in Patan.

Lord Ashok Vinayak (Maru Ganesh) is also for helping the people in their efforts on various businesses. So, he makes a pledge of making offerings of various sorts including the burning of one hundred thousand wicks for the success of his businesses.

In the past, nobody can find the ready-made hundreds of thousands of wicks as of today. One has to twist cotton manually to make one wick after another. So, it is an arduous and long time-taking job to twist cotton for one hundred thousand wicks. Therefore, Nepalis believe that deities will certainly be pleased if they make a pledge of burning one hundred thousand wicks. Most probably, Nepalis have thus set the tradition of making a pledge of burning one hundred thousand wicks to one deity or another to win the deity’s favor.

Currently, anybody can buy any number of wicks at stores specializing for selling such wicks and other necessary items for making the offerings of one hundred thousand of burning wicks to any deity.

So, Ramesh goes with his spouse Anjali to Mangal Bazaar in Patan, parks a car at the parking lot and then they go around the market area bargaining for the cheapest possible price for buying one hundred twenty five thousand wicks. Twenty five thousand wicks are added to one hundred thousand wicks to make sure that in no case the number of wicks is less than one hundred thousand.

Ramesh and Anjali buy one hundred and twenty five thousand wicks, five clay bowls for spreading twenty five thousand wicks on each of the bowl, five liters of sesame seed oil for soaking the wicks in it, some camphor and one set of small silver bowl with a golden wick in it.

Then, they go to a fruit store and buy long sugarcane and ask the storeowner for cutting it into four pieces. These pieces of sugarcane are for stirring the wicks burning in clay bowls.

On the eve of burning one hundred thousand wicks, Anjali calls on her sisters for help in soaking the wicks in oil. Her two sisters come to help her in preparing for burning one hundred thousand wicks.

They first put water on the clay bowls so that the bowls will be soaked in water. It is done so to stop the bowl soaking in the oil the wicks are soaked in.

Then, they take one bundle of one thousand wicks after another and soaked them in oil and then squeeze oil out of the wicks as much as possible, and then spread the wicks on the clay bowl soaked in water. Thus, they spread twenty five thousand wicks on each of the five clay bowls.

Next morning, Ramesh and Anjali take showers to clean their bodies. They don’t drink even tea, as drinking tea and eating something would defile their bodies and the deity will not accept offerings of one hundred thousand wick lamps made by such unclean bodies.

Then, Anjali puts together other items of offerings such as flowers, a few incense sticks, rice, cooked and flattened rice, a few sweets and others on a steel plate; all these items together represent five elements such as water, fire, air, earth and ether that together makes the life on earth.

Ramesh, Anjali and her sisters carry all those five bowl of wicks and a plateful of offerings to the deity called Karya Vinayak at Khokhana in the Lalitpur district. They spread out all five bowls of the wicks on a steel bench on the premises of the temple to the deity. They sprinkle a few cubes of camphor on each bowl to make the wicks burn easily, they sprinkle a few red power called vermillion and some coins on each bowl.

Then, a priest comes and starts off dedicating the wicks and other items of offerings to Lord Karya Vinayak. He reads out the instructions on dedicating the items on display. Ramesh and Anjali simply follow the instructions of the priest.

After completing the dedication rituals, the priest says, ‘the person making the offerings needs to make the first offerings of other items placed on the steel tray and then the offering of the first clay bowl full of wicks with the silver bowl and a golden wick in it to the deity. Then, s/he needs to burn the wicks in the clay bowl and take it around the temple going in the clockwise direction and place the bowl at the entrance to the temple, and s/he needs to first stir it by a piece of sugarcane; then only others can stir it.’

As the person making offerings of one hundred thousand burning wicks, Anjali holds a steel tray with all the items of offerings goes to offer Lord Karya Vinayak and one of her sisters holds the first bowl of wicks and follows her. Anjali makes offerings of one item after another to the lord, after completing the offerings of all those items on the steel tray; she takes the bowl of wicks from her sister and offers it to the lord. Then, she lights some of the wicks and offers them to the lord. The attendant to Lord Karya Vinayak takes out the silver bowl with a golden wick.

Anjali holds the bowl with burning wicks by her two hands at her chest level and goes around the temple following the clockwise direction and places it on the ground nearby the entrance to the temple. Then, she stirs it by a piece of sugarcane made for it, and leaves it on the ground for others to do the same.

Her sisters take one bowl of wicks after another and get lighted at the first bowl with the burning wicks and take them to one corner of the temple after another and place them there. Thus, four bowls of wicks are burning at four corners of the temple and one main bowl of wicks is burning at the entrance to the temple.

Ramesh, Anjali and her sisters take a break from the rituals of burning one hundred thousand wicks and rest for a while taking tea and soft drinks. They can drink and eat after completing the making of offerings to the lord.

Then, the devotees visiting Lord Karya Vinayak stir the burning wicks in bowls by the piece of sugarcane believing it will earn them merits. Some people even believe that if they can retrieve the coins offered in the bowls, and place such coins in their treasury box, the box will never go empty. So, some people try to retrieve coins from the burning wicks in the bowls repeatedly stirring the burning wicks.

Ramesh, Anjali and her sisters watch how the wicks are burning and whether someone has spill the burning wicks out of bowls while stirring it by a piece of sugarcane. If burning wicks are spilled out, one of them rushes to put the spilled burning wicks back to bowls believing it is not auspicious to let fall burning wicks out of the clay bowls and let them burning on the ground.

Some women even wait until the completion of burning the wicks to get a piece of sugarcane used for stirring the burning wicks in clay bowls; some women even steal such sugarcane. They take such sugarcane to their daughters-in-law or even to daughters, and let them chew a piece of it believing it will help them to have sons. So, usually women longing for having a male child do such things.

Ramesh, Anjali and her sisters wait until all wicks are burned out. Nobody leaves the burning wicks unattended. It takes about two to three hours for completing the burning the wicks. Then, they collect all the clay bowls and leave them at the trashcan.

Finally, Ramesh, Anjali and her sisters go to the lord and putting their palms together at their chest say, ‘buy’ to the lord and follow the clockwise direction to leave the temple premises. Thereafter, they come back home and have a good lunch.

Some people hold a great feast for all relatives and friends after making the offerings of one hundred thousand of burning wicks.

April 22, 2010.