Holi

The festival of Holi is celebrated with great enthusiasm in Bharat. This is one of the major festival celebrated in our country. Holi is a festival of colors which is celebrated by everyone with great enthusiasm and love. This festival full of colors plays an important role in increasing brotherhood and love among the people. On this festival, people of all religions leave aside their differences and embrace each other. Holika Dahan occurs every year on the full moon day of Phalgun month, hence it is known as 'Holika Dahan' or also called ' Chhoti Holi ' . The festival of colors is celebrated on the second day of Holika Dahan. Holi is a festival which fills the colors of happiness in relationships.

Holika Dahan or Chhoti Diwali:-

Preparations for this festival start a month in advance because wood is collected for Holika Dahan. We all clean the houses. Some people donate fuel (wood) as per their capacity to celebrate Holi. Holika Dahan is performed at an auspicious time on the full moon day of Shukla Paksha of Phalgun month. On the day of Holika Dahan, everyone stands around the bonfire and performs puja rituals. People also gather around Holika because the fire of Holika Dahan is a symbol of burning of evil powers and in front of this fire, people take a pledge to leave the evils and walk on the path of deities and also offer their devotion towards deity. .

Method of worship: On the full moon day of Phalgun month, at an auspicious time in the evening, the place is purified by sprinkling Ganga water at the place of Holika. After this, lighting the lamp (Diya), first remember Lord Shri Ganesh ji , then remember Lord Vishnu ji and Prahlad ji and Lord Agnidev. For worship, offer garland, roli, akshat, batasha (sugar-based confection), whole turmeric, gulal (color powder), coconut to Lord Vishnu and Agnidev. After this, remembering Shri Hari and Prahlad ji, do three, five or seven parikrama of Holika. Then remember Lord Narasimha and offer fire to Holika. As soon as the fire starts, everyone offers a garland of Badgulla made of cow dung to the fire deity. It is said that by doing this all the problems in the house go away. They tie an unripen wheat in sugarcane, bake it during Holika and consume it.

Holi, the festival of colors:

On the second day of Holika Dahan comes the festival of filling colors in life, i.e. the festival of happiness, which is called Badi Holi or also called ' Festival of Colors '. On this day all the women and men apply color and gulal to each other and spend the whole day with joy. After playing with colors the whole day, everyone wears new clothes in the evening and visits each other's house and receives the blessings of the elders. All the people eat Gujiya, which is the special dish of Holi.

If seen in this way, Holi is a festival which spreads mutual love and brotherhood in the society and maintains unity among the people of the society. This festival symbolizes the victory of good over evil, which removes the negativity from people's lives and inspires them to move towards the true path.

There are many mythological stories behind this exciting festival. One of those stories is here –

Story:

According to the Puranas, the name of sage Kashyap's son was Hiranyakashyap. Hiranyakashyap had a younger sister named ' Holika ' . Holika had the boon of not burning in fire, but this boon was only for doing good. Angered by the devotion of Lord Vishnu devotee Prahlad, Prahlad's father Hiranyakashyap made several attempts to kill his son Prahlad but failed, then his sister Holika said to her brother that she will destroy this child and give him death. ‘I have the boon of not getting burnt in fire. I will manifest fire with my Yoga Maya and will sit with him in my lap due to which Prahlad will be burnt to ashes and due to the fear of this incident, no one else in this world will ever take the name of Lord Vishnu’. Holika manifested fire and sat on it with Prahlad but nothing bad happened to Prahlad due to his glory towords the Lord Vishnu, rather Holika herself got burnt to ashes in that fire. In this way, due to the glory of Lord Vishnu, Holika was not able to harm Prahlad but it itself got burnt to ashes because Prahlad was adamant on the path of truth and since then the practice of burning Holika started.

From this story we get the message that no matter how powerful evil is, good always wins.

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