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Celebrating A Longest Festival In South Asia
By KTM Metro Reporter
October 24, 2012: in the name of Vijay Dashmi, South Asians have celebrated a longest festival. It has started on October 16, and ends on October 29 this year. Celebration of this festival reached the climax today means the 10th day of the festival: the day Goddess Durga defeated the demon called Mahishasur.
Nepalis make offerings of animal sacrifices to Goddess Durga. In Nepal, we called the goddess by the name of Bhagavati, too. Revelers sacrificed as many animals as possible starting from the eight day and ending on the ninth day of the festival.
In Bengal including Bangladesh, Hindus celebrated revering Goddess Durga. They made large idols of Goddess Durga and performed worship to the idols at every community and neighborhood, and then take the idols to nearby river to dispose. Potters make such idols out of clay, and paint them with different colors. Prices of such idols vary depending on the sizes and decorations any community want.
In some parts of India, people celebrate this festival as the victory of Lord Rama over the demon king called Ravana. They make tall idols of Ravana: some idols are as high as 50 meters (150 ft) and even higher, they make human size idols of Rama and his brother Laxman with bows and arrows. Then. These two brothers fires arrows at the idol of Ravana and killed him. Revelers burned down the idols of Ravana. In India, this festival also is called ‘Dussehra.’
In Nepal, on the tenth day, seniors offer the blessing of Goddess Bhagavati to juniors. Every senior offers such blessing in the form of red tika on the forehead. So, you will find every Hindu going with forehead full of red tika made out of rice mixed with vermilion and yogurt. If they miss this day to receive tika then they go on receiving such tika until the full moon day.
Head of State President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav offered blessing of Goddess Bhagavati to all the people wishing to receive at his residence today. A large number of people lined up for receiving red tike from the president. The president worked for about four hours to deliver blessing of Goddess Bhagavati to common folks.
Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai received red tika: blessing of Goddess Bhagavati from his father Bhoj Prasad Bhattarai today. Maoists had been against celebration of such religious festival. When Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai was a finance minister under Prime Minister Prachanda in 2009, he stopped giving the budget for celebrating Indra Jatra held just a month before this festival provoking a strong protest from the revelers. Ultimately, the then Finance Minister Dr. Bhattarai gave in and paid for the festival.
On the occasion of the Dashian festival, Chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda has sent his warm greetings to all Nepalis at home and abroad, and wished them for happiness, peace and prosperity. Chairman Prachanda also hoped that Goddess Bhagavati would inspire all leaders to reach a political consensus.
in a message on the occasion of Vijaya Dashami festival today, Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai stated that durable peace, stability and new constitution are the common aspirations of all the Nepalis home and abroad and underlined the need of support and cooperation from all sides to meet such aspirations writes RSS.
Similarly, former Prime Minister and Nepali Congress senior leader Sher Bahadur Deuba has wished that this festival may bring peace, prosperity and happiness among the Nepalis and inspire them to promote mutual amity and trust. "The nation is passing through hard times and may such transition end soon with the promulgation of democratic constitution", Deuba said in his message, writes RSS.
