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The national festival of the Bengalis, The Durga Puja ends with a somber tone. But soon, this melancholy slowly disappears with the arrival of Lakshmi Puja in between to finally the tri-festival of the Bengalis - Kali Puja, Diwali and last but not the least the Brother’s Day. Despite strong Vaishnav (The devotees of Lord Krishna) influence and the spree brought about by Lord Chaitanya over the centuries, the staunch Hindu minded Bengali still bestowed absolute faith in the worship of Power. The Universe is incessantly encountered by the forces of creation and destruction - both visages of the same Omnipotent. One is that of the creator while the other is the destroyer. Bengali has visualized this Superpower in the form of a mother Goddess, since time immemorial. Again, on the contrary she sometimes appears to be the symbol of vehement excesses with an intense vapour of extremism. In Goddess Durga the mother of welfare and daughter of prosperity is clearly visible. All our frights and fears, uncertainties and bewilderment gets condensed in the icon of Goddess Kali. Man has tried to discover the enigmatic, the occult, the unknown through the musing of Goddess Kali. The common Bengali does not give much prominence to this idol of Goddess Kali as laid down in the Hindu religious texts (Shastras). Albeit the Puja is held on the night of the New Moon in the Bengali month of Kartik, this occasion brings in a tidal wave of festive zeal amongst the various cross sections of society. According to the grapevine, Lord Chaitanya’s contemporary Krishnananda Agambagish (a distinguished scholar of Indian charms, incantations black magic and voodoo - `Tantra’) created the idol of Goddess Kali. Once he spent an entire night cogitating about how the icon shall be. At dawn, as soon as he came out of the threshold, his eyes caught notice of the housing maid baking cakes out of cow dung . Her unprecedented coming face-to-face with Krishnananda made her resulting in her active hand and left foot becoming standstill. Out of shame, she bite her tongue. This posture of the housemaid gave vent to his imagination which he later utilized to envisage the idol of Goddess Kali. Now, just like all other rituals, the religious sides of Kali Puja has become quite indirect and obscure. It is now more of a social festival. In Calcutta and the suburbs, Kali Puja is celebrated with equal pomp and grandeur. Always the images are not fiery looking ubiquitously. In many family Pujas, the sacred form of Goddess Kali is being worshipped as a practice. One cannot forget the extraordinary song penned by the famous poet hailing from Halishahar, Ramprasad Sen who developed a pure human relationship with his hymns. It is believed that Goddess Kali used to appear before him as his daughter. One remembers Rani Rashmoni had established the idol of Goddess Kali at Dakshineswar and had appointed Gadadhar alias Sri Sri Ramkrishna Paramahansa (known worldwide through Swami Vivekananda, his disciple’s mission) as Her priest. It was this image of Goddess Kali of Dakshineswar which Swami Vivekananda found awakened and was transcended in another world after coming across the living deity. In the Hindu religious texts, different representations of Goddess Kali are available viz. Siddha Kali, Bhadra Kali, Raksha Kali, Shwashan Kali and Maha Kali. In the different districts of West Bengal there are several renowned places of pilgrimage of Goddess Kali - where pujas are held everyday, and on special occasions, pujas are arranged with extra splendour. In the heart of South Calcutta, stands Kalighat, one such holy place of the fifty-one sacred places. In between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the indigenous Pot industry started developing in and around Kalighat. Today India is celebrating The festival of `Diwali’ or The festival of lights. In the Hindu religious texts, it is mentioned as the festival of `Dipabali’. Diwali is a national festival specially for Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. The principal feature of Diwali is to illuminate households with row of lamps on the night of the New Moon in the Bengali month of Kartik. It is said that when Lord Rama came back to Ayodhya after killing Ravana, the subjects in rejoice felicitated Rama by organizing a carnival - Indians still today has kept this custom alive by kindling lamps on this night and reminiscing this incident of Ramayana by celebration. People also used to burn lamps amidst the crop fields out of necessity. During the Bengali month of Kartik, there used to be seasonal disturbances of insecticides, so to repel them such measures were undertaken. With the social evolution of time objects and its utility get changed. Just like few decades back, during the Diwali night in city and country alike families used to illuminate their houses with the warm, sparkling bright light of the earthen lamps. But now, such lamps are obsolete. In lieu, different candles of various colours and forms, various types of electric lamps of different shapes and sizes are illuminated in the dark, cool foggy night of Diwali. But perhaps the most popular event during the Festival is the burning of fire crackers. Fireworks of diverse colours and sounds echoes the skies of the Diwali night. The culture of burning crackers in our country is an age old custom. There is a funny anecdote about this. By popular belief it is told that the spirits of the forefathers emerges from the Hades on the dark fortnight in the month of Bhadra and Ashwin to accept the obsequies from their current predecessors on this occasion. A balloon torch is flied in the sky to show them the path pack to Tartarus. This probably has given rise to the custom of burning crackers as prevalent today. In India most of the fire crackers are supplied from Shivakashi, situated in the southern state of Chennai (Madras). There are also several small manufacturing units of fire crackers in West Bengal. During this season, all the occasions celebrated by Bengalis are not religiously guided. For example, Brothers’ Day. This is an exclusive programme of sweet heart touching relationship that exists between both men and women, the bondage of brother and sister has a sacred gracefulness. This becomes more highlighted on Brother’s Day. ‘I touch my brother on the forehead, |
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Typical illustrations of
Baji Mela at Maidan |
BUDDHA
JAYANTI
One of the greatest spiritual teachers of mankind which Bharat has produced is undoubtedly, Buddha. Edwin Arnold has fittingly called him the "Light of Asia". Buddha/s message has travelled far and wide and captured the hearts and minds of billions of people outside Bharat also.
Siddhartha, the only son of Shuddhodana, the Kind of Kapilavastu situated at the foot of Himalayas, was prophesied by the royal astrologer to become either a famous emperor or a world-renowned ascetic. The father, anxious that his son should not take to the thorny path of a recluse, took extraordinary precautions to avoid every situation which would provoke such thoughts in his son's mind.
Siddhartha grew of age without ever knowing what misery or sorrow was. One day the prince desired to see the city. The King ordered that the city should be all gay and grand, so that everywhere his son would meet with only pleasing sights. However, an old and crippled man by the roadside happened to catch Siddhartha's eye. It was a sight never witnessed before by the prince: a sunken face, a toothless mouth, all the limbs emaciated, the whole body bent and walking with extreme difficulty. The innocent prince asked who that creature was. Chenna, the charioteer, replied that he was a human being who had become old. To further enquiries of Siddhartha, Chenna informed that the old man was of fine shape in his young age and that every human being had to become like him after the youthful days are past. The perturbed prince returned to the palace, deeply engrossed in anxious thoughts.
King Shuddhodana, in order to cheer up his spirits, again ordered for his son's procession in the capital, but on subsequent rounds, Siddhartha came across a sick man and a corpse being carried to the funeral ground. Again it was Chenna, the charioteer, who explained that human beings were prone to illness and that death inevitably awaited man at the end. As luck would have it, on his final round, Siddhartha saw a person, his face beaming with job and tranquility, and heard from Chenna that he was an ascetic who had triumphed over the worldly temptations, fears and sorrows and attained the highest bliss of life.
And that clinched the thoughts of the young prince. He was then hardly twenty-nine. In that full bloom of youth, in the midnight of a full-moon day, he bade good-bye to his dear parents, his beloved wife Yashodhara and sweet little child Rahul and all the royal pleasures and luxuries, and departed to the forest to seek for himself answers for the riddles of human misery.
For seven long years, Siddhartha roamed in the jungles, underwent severe austerities and finally, on the Vaishaakha Poornima Day, the supreme light of Realization dawned on him. He thereafter became Buddha, the Enlightened One. When he was an itinerant monk, he was called Gautama and now he became popular as Gautama Buddha. Buddha's overflowing love for the downtrodden and destitute acted as one of the greatest factors for social harmony and justice to the weaker sections in the society.
Buddha's life abounds in such instances when he honored and upheld the purity and devotion of the lowliest in the society. Once Buddha had camped in the kingdom of Bindusara. The king - a disciple of Buddha - honored his Guru with chariots-loads of royal presents and offerings. The other disciples also, many of them rich, made offerings to the best of their ability. At the end, an old and poor woman trekked slowly to the presence of Buddha, offered a small pomegranate and collapsed at his feet, Buddha ordered the bell of honor to be rung in her name for that day, to the utter surprise of the king and his subjects.
The spiritual and moral forces generated by Buddha have strengthened and enriched Hinduism and helped to wean it from perversions which had set in at that time. The present-day sublime thoughts and convictions of a common Hindu owe not a little to the life and preachings of Buddha. And Buddha himself has been revered as an Avataar of God by Hindus. Buddha Gaya where he attained his supreme enlightenment has to this day remained one of the most sanctified places of pilgrimage for the entire Hindu World.
Buddha's philosophical analysis of the basic problem of human suffering and misery helped to hold before the common man a purified and simplified Eight-Fold Path of Salvation, i.e., the right type of life-view, of intention, of speech, action, livelihood, effort, frame of mind and of concentration. Buddha, like Mahaveera, denounced the animal sacrifices in the yajnas and yagas and himself stood as the very embodiment of compassion to all living beings. He also forcefully brought home the limited merit of such rituals and stressed that the attainment of Final Beatitude is the summum bonum of human life. As days passed, the effect of Buddha's teachings not only influenced the Hindu people in general but contributed decisively in elevating spiritually several races spreading over a vast region of the globe, including areas such as the present-day Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Brahmadesh, Siam, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Annam, Cochin, China, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Malaya, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet and Khotan in Central Asia. To this day most of these countries look upon Buddha as their supreme spiritual redeemer.
Buddha passed into eternity after completing his Sahasra Chandra Darshana i.e., 1000 full moon days (80th year) on the full moon day of Vaishaakha - the day of his birth as also of his Enlightenment. And to this day, Buddha lives on as a beacon-light to billions the world over, who yearn for the peace and well-being of all living creation.
