It is intriguing to hear about the many festivals and celebrations Lakshmi and her family celebrate in Nepal. Hearing from Lakshmi's 13 year old perspective, I was immedietly interested in learning more about what she calls "The Festival Of Lights." Lakshmi describes the three days of the festival, and closed with, "And on the third day, we clean our homes top to bottom. We put dozens of tiny oil lamps out at dusk to welcome the goddess Lakshmi, my namesake, who will circle the earth and bestow wealth and blessings on the humble and the pure" (page 39). This made me curious about why they honor these things and what they do to honor them. According to BBC-Religions, it is known as the "Festival Of Lights" because the people light up their villages with lamps, traditionally fueled by mustard oil. These lamps are lit to help the godess Lakshmi find her way to the homes of the humble and the pure. They honor Lakshmi because Lakshmi is the godess of wealth, and they are hoping for prosperity. I noticed that while these traditions seem strange, they are not so different from our traditions. At Christmas we string lights around our house, and around a tree. At Halloween we put jack-o-lantern out to scare away spirits. Really, these festival are similar to what we celebrate, just with different gods.
This was indeed a very interesting topic that I found myself pondering as well. I was also curious as to why they put rice out and dotted their foreheads with red powder and and put garlands around their necks. Lakshmi says it is to honor the crows who are the messengers of death and the dogs because they are the guides to the land of the dead, but how do they relate to the festival of lights it my question.
ReplyDeleteAfter doing some research I found that according to Festivals of Nepal: Tihar, the festival is based off an old story where a king's astrologer told him that a serpent was going to come at night and take his life. The king asked what he should do and in return the astrologer said to leave lit lanterns all around his bed and the palace so that the goddess Lakshmi would talk the serpent out of taking his life. The goddess listened and persuaded the serpent not to take his life, so the serpent went to the god of the underworld and added a seven to the zero that was put down for the years left in the kings life. The king lived seventy more years and ever since there has been a festival to honor the good doings of Lakshmi and the animals who are the aids of the underworld. This is such a fascinating tradition and story, I am so glad that we looked this up because the story seems so much more rich now that we know a little but more of the culture behind it.
*the dog's heads
ReplyDelete