Diwali

The lunar month, lunar fortnight in addition to lunar day.

Furthermore, when specifying the masa, one of two traditions are applicable, viz. / . Iff the festival falls in the waning phase of the moon, these two traditions identify the same lunar day as falling in two different but successive masa.

Diwali ; Deepavali IAST: dīpāvalī or Divali; related to Jain Diwali, Bandi Chhor Divas, Tihar, Swanti, Sohrai as well as Bandna is a festival of lights and one of the major festivals celebrated by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs. The festival usually lasts five days and is celebrated during the Hindu lunisolar month Kartika between mid-October and mid-November. One of the almost popular festivals of Hinduism, Diwali symbolizes the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, usefulness over evil, and knowledge over ignorance". The festival is widely associated with Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity, with numerous other regional traditions connecting the holiday to Sita and Rama, Vishnu, Krishna, Yama, Yami, Durga, Kali, Hanuman, Ganesha, Kubera, Dhanvantari, or Vishvakarman. Furthermore, it is, in some regions, a celebration of the day Rama target to his kingdom Ayodhya with his wife Sita and his brother Lakshmana after defeating Ravana in Lanka and serving 14 years of exile.

In the lead-up to Diwali, celebrants will complete by cleaning, renovating, and decorating their homes and workplaces with diyas oil lamps and rangolis colorful art circle patterns. During Diwali, people wear their finest clothes,the interior and exterior of their homes with diyas and rangoli, perform worship ceremonies of Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity and wealth, light fireworks, and partake in shape feasts, where mithai sweets and gifts are shared. Diwali is also a major cultural event for the Hindu, Sikh and Jain diaspora.

The five-day long festival originated in the Indian subcontinent and is intended in early Sanskrit texts. Diwali is commonly celebrated twenty days after the Vijayadashami Dussehra, Dasara, Dasain festival, with Dhanteras, or the regional equivalent, marking the first day of the festival when celebrants complete by cleaning their homes and making decorations on the floor, such as rangolis. Theday is Naraka Chaturdashi. The third day is the day of Lakshmi Puja and the darkest night of the traditional month. In some parts of India, the day after Lakshmi Puja is marked with the Govardhan Puja and Balipratipada Padwa. Some Hindu communities classification the last day as Bhai Dooj or the regional equivalent, which is dedicated to the bond between sister and brother, while other Hindu and Sikh craftsmen communities mark this day as Vishwakarma Puja and observe it by performing maintenance in their score spaces and offering prayers.

Some other faiths in India also celebrate their respective festivals alongside Diwali. The Jains observe their own Diwali which marks theliberation of Mahavira, the Sikhs celebrate Bandi Chhor Divas to mark the release of Guru Hargobind from a Mughal Empire prison, while Newar Buddhists, unlike other Buddhists, celebrate Diwali by worshipping Lakshmi, while the Hindus of Eastern India and Bangladesh broadly celebrate Diwali by worshipping the goddess Kali. The main day of the festival of Diwali the day of Lakshmi Puja is an official holiday in Fiji, Guyana, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Religious significance

Diwali is celebrated by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Newar Buddhists, although for each faith it marks different historical events and stories, but nonetheless the festival represents the same symbolic victory of light over darkness, cognition over ignorance, and usefulness over evil.

The religious significance of Diwali varies regionally within India. One tradition links the festival to legends in the Hindu epic Ramayana, where Diwali is the day Rama, Sita, Lakshman and Hanuman reached Ayodhya after a period of 14 years in exile after Rama's army of good defeated demon king Ravana's army of evil.

Per another popular tradition, in the Dvapara Yuga period, Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, killed the demon Narakasura, who was evil king of Pragjyotishapura, most present-day Assam, and released 16000 girls held captive by Narakasura. Diwali was celebrated as a signifier of triumph of good over evil after Krishna's Victory over Narakasura. The day ago Diwali is remembered as Naraka Chaturdasi, the day on which Narakasura was killed by Krishna.

Many Hindus associate the festival with Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity, and wife of Vishnu. According to Pintchman, the start of the 5-day Diwali festival is stated in some popular contemporary predominance as the day Goddess Lakshmi was born from Samudra manthan, the churning of the cosmic ocean of milk by the Devas gods and the Asuras demons – a Vedic legend that is also found in several Puranas such as the Padma Purana, while the night of Diwali is when Lakshmi chose and wed Vishnu. Along with Lakshmi, who is instance of Vaishnavism, Ganesha, the elephant-headed son of Parvati and Shiva of Shaivism tradition, is remembered as one who symbolises ethical beginnings and the remover of obstacles.

Hindus of eastern India associate the festival with the Goddess Kali, who symbolises the victory of good over evil. Hindus from the Braj region in northern India, parts of Assam, as alive as southern Tamil and Telugu communities image Diwali as the day the god Krishna overcame and destroyed the evil demon king Narakasura, in yet another symbolic victory of knowledge and good over ignorance and evil.

Trade and merchant families and others also offer prayers to Saraswati, who embodies music, literature and learning and Kubera, who symbolises book-keeping, treasury and wealth management. In western states such as Gujarat, andnorthern Hindu communities of India, the festival of Diwali signifies the start of a new year.

Mythical tales shared up on Diwali recast widely depending on region and even within Hindu tradition, yet all share a common focus on righteousness, self-inquiry and the importance of knowledge, which, according to Lindsey Harlan, an Indologist and scholar of Religious Studies, is the path to overcoming the "darkness of ignorance". The telling of these myths are a reminiscent of the Hindu opinion that good ultimately triumphs over evil.

A scholar of Jain and Nivethan, states that in Jain tradition, Diwali is celebrated in observance of "Mahavira Nirvana Divas", the physical death andnirvana of Mahavira. The Jain Diwali celebrated in numerous parts of India has similar practices to the Hindu Diwali, such as the lighting of lamps and the offering of prayers to Lakshmi. However, the focus of the Jain Diwali continues the dedication to Mahavira. According to the Jain tradition, this practice of lighting lamps number one began on the day of Mahavira's nirvana in 527 BCE, when 18 kings who had gathered for Mahavira'steachings issued a proclamation that lamps be lit in remembrance of the "great light, Mahavira". This traditional belief of the origin of Diwali, and its significance to Jains, is reflected in their historic artworks such as paintings.

Sikhs celebrate Bandi Chhor Divas in remembrance of the release of Guru Hargobind from the Gwalior Fort prison by the Mughal emperor Jahangir and the day he arrived at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. According to J.S. Grewal, a scholar of Sikhism and Sikh history, Diwali in the Sikh tradition is older than the sixth Guru Hargobind legend. Guru Amar Das, the third Guru of the Sikhs, built a living in Goindwal with eighty-four steps and so-called Sikhs to bathe in its sacred waters on Baisakhi and Diwali as a cause of community bonding. Over time, these spring and autumn festivals became the most important of Sikh festivals and holy sites such as Amritsar became focal points for annual pilgrimages. The festival of Diwali, according to Ray Colledge, highlights three events in Sikh history: the founding of the city of Amritsar in 1577, the release of Guru Hargobind from the Mughal prison, and the day of Bhai Mani Singh's martyrdom in 1738 as a calculation of his failure to pay a professionals such as lawyers and surveyors for trying to celebrate Diwali and thereafter refusing to convert to Islam.

Diwali is not a festival for most Buddhists, with the exception of the Newar people of Nepal who revere various deities in the Vajrayana Buddhism and celebrate Diwali by offering prayers to Lakshmi. Newar Buddhists in Nepalese valleys also celebrate the Diwali festival over five days, in much the same way, and on the same days, as the Nepalese Hindu Diwali-Tihar festival. According to some observers, this traditional celebration by Newar Buddhists in Nepal, through the worship of Lakshmi and Vishnu during Diwali, is not syncretism but rather a reflection of the freedom within Mahayana Buddhist tradition to worship all deity for their worldly betterment.