Skip to main content

Navratri Festival


Navratri, meaning 'nine nights', is one of the most popular and widely celebrated Hindu festivals in many parts of India. Gujarat, however, is the only state that erupts into a nine-night dance festival, perhaps the longest in the world. Each night, all over the state, villages and cities alike, people gather in open spaces to celebrate feminine divinity, referred to as Shakti. The dance form known as ras garba (also joined sometimes by dandiya, which uses small wooden sticks), comes from Lord Krishna's worship rather than Goddess worship, from the Gop culture of Saurashtra and Kutch.
Nevertheless, the focal point of every Garba circle is the small Goddess shrine erected by each community to mark the beginning of the festival, on the first day of the Hindu month of Ashwin. The shrine includes a garbo, an earthenware pot, in which a betel nut, coconut, and silver coin are placed. Each night the village or urban neighborhood gathers to perform a puja to one of the nine forms of Goddess: namely Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. After the puja begins the music people begin to dance in a circle, whirling away till late into the night. It is not uncommon to find dancers with swords or lit flames and other spectacles. Similarly, the music was traditionally acoustic, principally composed of drums and singing, but most people now use amplified sound systems or a blend in the form of a live band with modern instruments. The tenth day of Navratri that is Dussehra is also known as Vijayadashami in South India and is celebrated with great aplomb.


https://www.swantour.com/blogs/festivals-of-gujarat/

Comments

  1. Sumeet ChopraSeptember 3, 2024 at 11:12 PM

    Great post! I learned a lot from your analysis. You have a unique way of presenting complex ideas simply. Keep up the great work!

    Mice tour operators
    Destination wedding planner packages
    Corporate event planner

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pink City Jaipur Gets UNESCO World Heritage Tag!

The Walled City of  Jaipur,  popularly known as the 'Pink City' is famous for its iconic architectural legacy and vibrant culture, on July 6 made its entry into the UNESCO World Heritage Site list during the 43rd Session of the World Heritage Committee held at Baku, Azerbaijan. A World Heritage Site is a location having an “Outstanding Universal Value,” and has common significance for present and future generations of all humanity. The city was proposed to be nominated for its value of being an exemplary development in town planning and architecture that demonstrates an amalgamation and important exchange of ideas in the late medieval period. The city of Jaipur was founded in 1727 AD under the patronage of Sawai Jai Singh II. It serves as the capital city of the culturally-rich state of Rajasthan. Interestingly, this is India’s 38 th inscription into the World Heritage list, India already has 37 world heritage sites, that include 29 Cultural properties, 7 Natural propertie...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tarnetar Fair

One of the many vibrant festivals of Gujarat, Tarnetar Fair is the annual festival that takes place in Sundernagar,  Gujarat— a tiny village, about 200 km away from Ahmedabad.  This is inspired by  Draupadi's  swayamvara , and is a celebration of ethnic Gujarat’s folk-dance, music, costumes, and the arts, centered around young tribal men and women seeking marriage partners. Here many kinds of folk dances are performed; by far the most popular is the  raas , in which dancers hold sticks to clack against those of other dancers. As many as one to two hundred women perform  ramadas  in a single circle, to the beats of four drums at a time and the tunes of  jodia pavas  (double flutes). Rabari women of nearby Zalawad perform the famous circular folk dance called  rahado . Their marital status is indicated clearly by their costumes; a black  zimi  (skirt) means she is married. But if a woman is wearing a red  zimi , it means s...
Post a Comment
Read more

5 FEMA Rules Every NRI Should Know

The Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) is a law enacted by the Government of India in 1999 to control the flow of foreign currency across Indian borders.FEMA aims to facilitate external trade and their payments in India, a systematic improvement and continuation of foreign exchange in the Indian market.It’s important for Indians working abroad to understand FEMA rules for NRIs very carefully since it can affect the way they can send and receive funds from India.Let’s look at five FEMA Regulations for NRIs: 1.        Maintaining a Bank Account You need to operate bank accounts that are specifically designated for NRIs. FEMA rules for NRIs do not allow holding a savings bank account.  There are 3 major types of accounts as stipulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)that you can open: - NRO account  - If you want to send money earned abroad back to India. - NRE account  - For repatriable or moveable assets like securities and cas...
Post a Comment
Read more