|
|
||
|
|
January 13
Over three hundred years ago the tenth and last (human) Guru of the Sikhs led his army in an historic battle against the Mughal Emperor. But today’s holiday, Maghi Mela, actually honors the 40 followers who deserted the Guru before the fight. At the Battle of Anandpur, Guru Gobind Singh’s men were besieged by the Mughal army. The Mughal Empire covered over 3 million square kilometers and had a population of over 120 million people. Forty …Read more 
January 13 In Punjab, January marks a lull in the winter wheat harvest. Farmers plant wheat in October and harvest the crops in March or April. By January the wheat has sprung up and farmers rejoice in anticipation of a bountiful harvest. The traditional Indian calendar has twelve months and two seasons: Uttarayan (January 14 to July 14) and Dakshinayana (July 14 to January 14). Today is Lohri, the last day of Dakshinayana, considered winter …Read more 
January 12 The glory of Krishna is not that he was Krishna, but that he was the great teacher of Vedanta…Persons are but the embodiments, the illustration of principles. If the principles are there, the persons will come by the thousands and millions. But if the principle is lost and forgotten and the whole of national life tries to cling round a so-called historical person, woe unto that religion, danger unto that religion! Swami Vivekananda Over a …Read more 
October 26, 2011 November 5, 2010 October 17, 2009 October 28, 2008 “Since the light of intelligence (Varhamana Mahavira) is gone, let us make an illumination of the material matter.” On the darkest evening in the month of Ashvin (October/November), Hindus around the world fill the night with candles, lamps and firecrackers to celebrate the Festival of Lights known as Diwali. Diwali, or Deepavali, means literally, a row of …Read more October 5-6, 2011 Maha Navami According to an 1815 French text… “Maha-navami, known also under the name of Dasara, [is] specially dedicated to the memory of ancestors. This feast is considered to be so obligatory that it has become a proverb that anybody who has not the means of celebrating it should sell one of his children in order to do so.” Okay—celebrants don’t actually sell off the kids to honor to celebrate, but the holiday is a big deal …Read more The seventh and eighth days of Durga Puja are two of the most auspicious days of the great Bengali festival. (You’ll notice a lot of ‘Maha’ in Hindu festivals. It’s a prefix meaning ‘great’.) Maha Saptami According to www.indiasite.com The morning of maha saptami (seventh day) is taken up with the worship of the deity, followed by anjali when a devotee offers prayers and flowers on an empty stomach, amidst the chanting of mantras to the Goddess. Only then can …Read more 
Durga Puja is the largest celebration of Bengal and Bangladesh, and is also celebrated throughout Bhutan, and Nepal. It worships the mother goddess Durga, who was called into existence by the trinity of Hindu gods, Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu, to defeat the demon Mahishasura. According to legend, Shiva gave the once-loyal Mahishasura a power that he would later regret: that Mahishasura would not be killed by any man. Confident he could never be stopped, Mahishasura went all maniacal on the …Read more 
October 2 It is not my purpose to attempt a real autobiography. I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments, it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 1940 India, a land overflowing with the holy days of its many religions, has only three official national holidays of its own: Republic Day, Independence …Read more |
|
|
Copyright © 2012 every day's a holiday! - All Rights Reserved 47 queries. 1.990 seconds. |
||
English