Dashain Festival

By Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

During the Dashain festival we worship Durga Bhawani. The word Durga is derived from the word Durgay that means the relief from sufferings. Hence, Durga means the goddess who relieves us from our sufferings. She killed Mahishasur-- the most notorious demon relieving the deities and humans from the suffering caused by the monster's misdeeds in the Hindu world. Our ancestors had depicted ego, jealousy and contempt as the evils. Later on they called those bad things demons. They set the tradition of reminding the killing of those bad habits once a year. To kill Mahishasur means to destroy all bad habits of humans. Hence, Vijaya Dashain means victory over our own mind, body and speech, and the most demonic things such as anger, contempt, and jealousy. Therefore, celebrating the Dashain festival spiritually means controlling our mind, and suppressing the demonic evils such as anger, contempt and jealousy.
Mystically Goddess Durga Bhawani is a beautiful woman who came out of a beam of the light projected from the God Rudra's third eye. She has eighteen limbs. God Himal gave her a tiger to ride on. Lord Shiva gave her a Trishul; Lord Vishnu gave her his spinning disc, and Lord Indra gave her his Vajra. Thus, different gods gave her different weapons to empower her to kill demon Mahishasur.
Goddess Durga Bhawani also is the combined form of nine goddesses called Nava Durga. Nepalis believe that Goddess Durga Bhawani herself created one goddess after another to empower herself to fight against the demon army. She went on creating the goddesses, and their number reached nine. They together fought against the demon army and finished them off.
In the course of our cultural and religious development, our ancestors had made us believe that evil spirits of demons went in hiding in animals and birds to escape the killing from the goddesses and convinced us to kill as many animals and birds as possible to benefit because we believe that we are killing the demons not the innocent animals and birds. We kill so many animals in public and give the impression of a real war. Probably, time has come to understand the hidden meaning of Goddess Durga Bhawani and gradually improve the festival celebration method rather than blindly following the tradition.
The activities of Dashain start with the beginning of making offerings to ancestors on the first day of the dark fortnight in Aswin (Sept. - Oct.). Nepalis perform offerings called Sradha to their ancestors on any one of those days -- starting on the full moon day of the bright fortnight and ending on the last day of the dark fortnight in Aswin. They believe that their religious or social undertakings will not be fruitful if the ancestors are not satisfied. Hence, Nepalis set the tradition of first making offerings to the ancestors before celebrating any significant festival or performing any important ceremonies. Hence, ancestors celebrate the Dashain festival earlier than their progeny on earth. In other words ancestors participate in the Dashain festival a few days before their offspring celebrate on earth.
In celebrating the Dashain festival, Nepalis worship nine mother goddess starting on the first day of the bright fortnight and ending on the ninth day in Aswin believing every day one mother goddess appeared to fight against the demons. On the first day, the main goddess called Brahmayani emerged and began fighting against the demon army. On this day people install holy water jar in their special prayer room to summon the goddess. This day is called Ghata-sthapna literally meaning ceremonial installation of a holy water jar. They also sow seeds of nine different cereal grains in a specially prepared sand bed around the holy water jar.  People of different origin have different ways of venerating the goddess.
On the second day Goddess Maheswori emerged to fight with Goddess Brahmayani against the demon, hence, Nepalis worship Goddess Maheswori on the second of the Dashain. Thus, on the third day Goddess Kaumari, on the fourth day Goddess Bhadrakali, on the fifth day Goddess Barahi, on the sixth day Goddess Indrayani, on the seventh day Goddess Mahakali, on the eighth day, Goddess Mahalaxmi and on the ninth day Goddess Tripureswori showed up and together with all goddesses fought against the demon army and won victory over them. The period of the nine days is called Nawa-ratri.  On the ninth day Nepalis worship Goddess Tripureswori, and then all nine goddess together.
On the ninth day Nepalis make offerings to their equipment, machines, tools and vehicles. Artisans, craftsmen, mechanics and traders make offerings to their tools, equipment, vehicle and instrument. Some even offer animal and bird sacrifice to those means of work. They believe that by doing do they increase the efficiency of those vehicles, equipment, machines and tools at the same time avoid accidents for a year.
The Newar community makes offering to the virgin girls on the ninth day.  They believe that the virgin girls possessed by the most powerful goddess called Kumari.  Hence, they revere the young girls on this day. Goddess Kumari is the source of the power, prestige and status in the society. Every Newar household keeps Goddess Kumari in one non-living form or another, and makes offerings to her every day.
The tenth day is the most important day of the Dashain festival. This day is called Vijaya Dashain means the victory day. Nepalis perform concluding religious rituals, and make offerings to Goddess Durga Bhawani– combined form of the nine goddesses. Then, they begin offering the blessings of the almighty goddess first to the family members starting from the senior most among the family members. This first day is generally reserved for offering the blessings of the goddesses to the family members only. Thereafter, relatives, friends and colleagues begin offering the blessings of the deity to the juniors until the eve of the full moon day in Aswin.  Therefore, juniors begin visiting the seniors for receiving the blessings of the goddesses as well as theirs too.
On the full moon day Nepalis dispose all the remains of the offerings made to the goddesses in the nearest river and end the Dashain festival. Thus, Dashain is the longest festival Nepalis observe starting on the first day of the bright fortnight and ending on the full moon day in Aswin.