India

flag_india

India is the world capital of holidays. As Mark Twain once said, “India has 2000000 gods and worships them all. In religion all other countries are paupers. India is the only millionaire.” (Following the Equator, 1899)

Another traditional belief puts the number of Hindu deities at 330 million. Explore Hinduism chalks the latter estimate up to a misconception: “According to Hindu scriptures, the living beings are not apart from God, since God lives in each and every one of them in the form of the inner spirit [atman]. Thus, each living being is an individualized and particularized manifestation of God. In ancient times, it was believed there were 330 million living beings. This gave rise to the concept of 330 million deities.”

Either way, we’ve yet to see the unexpunged list.

Even celebrations for the few thousand gods that we do have stats on would easily fill the calendar year. Most deities are not worshipped by the whole nation, but by specific regions, which have their own specific pantheon. Only a much smaller list of deities are worshipped across the entire nation.

India is also home to millions of Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs and Jains as well as Hindus. So you see not a day goes by where parts of the country aren’t celebrating something.

Surprisingly, the government observes only three national holidays:

Republic Day (January 26)

Independence Day (August 15)

Gandhi Jayanti / Gandhi’s Birthday (October 2)

Religious and Cultural Holidays

Guru Gobind Singh (January 5)

Youth Day / Vivekananda’s Birthday (January 12)

Lohri (January 13)

Makar Sankranti (January 13-14)

Pongal (January 14-17)

Vasant Panchami / Saraswati Puja (January/February)

Day of Peace and Non-Violence (International observance commemorating the death of Gandhi, January 30)