Our festival-Dussehra

                                          Dussehra

 Dussehra is a very important festival in Hindu culture. Dussehra is one of the most celebrated festivals in India. Dussehra is the victory of knowledge over ignorance, truth over falsehood, light over darkness. Dussehra is also called Vijayadashami. Dussehra, one of the three and a half muhurats, is celebrated on Ashwin Shuddha Dashmi. Dussehra or Vijayadashami is celebrated on the tenth day after the end of Navratra. There are different traditions of this day. Rama had conquered Lanka by killing Ravana on the same day. On the same day Goddess Durga fought and killed Mahishasura, Shivaji Maharaj started the excitement of Bhavani Devi on Pratapgad from the day of Dussehra. When the Pandavas went into exile, they hid their weapons on the shami tree and after completing the ajnatavas, they took back their weapons and worshiped shami.

  Dussehra is still celebrated in India with great enthusiasm and joy. On this day people buy new things, house, car. Also, gold and silver ornaments are bought on the day of Dussehra. Some people start a new business these days. In ancient times kings and people used to go to war on this day.

 On the day of Dussehra the whole house is decorated. They wash and clean the vehicles and weapons in the house. Marigold flowers and mango leaves are planted in the house. In the evening, pooja is offered in the house. Books, weapons, ornaments etc. are worshiped in the puja. Women cook legumes. After the pooja is over, people meet each other to seek the blessings of the elders. It is a legend to give apatya leaves as a gift to each other. Many years ago there was a sage named Vartantu. Many students used to come to his ashram for education. One of them was Kauts, a student who was studying with the sage Vartantu. In those days, disciples used to give Gurudakshina to Guru in exchange for knowledge. Kautsalahi also wanted to give Guru Dakshina to the Guru but Vartantuna did not want any Gurudakshina. But when Kauts did not hear anything, he decided to take Kauts's test. For this, he asked for fourteen crores of gold coins, just like one crore gold coins for one Vidya.

    It was not possible for Kautsa to collect 14 crore gold coins, so he went to Raghuraj, but Raghuraj had donated all his wealth. He begged Kautsas to return after three days so that the beggar would not return empty-handed and demanded money from Kubera but Kubera did not send any money so he prepared to attack. The news reached Indra, who told Kubera to rain gold coins on the apatya trees in Raghuraja's kingdom to prevent an attack. Seeing the rain of gold coins, the king called Kautsa and asked him to take as much money as he wanted. But Kautsa took enough money for Gurudakshina The rest of the gold coins were distributed by Raghuraja to the people. People give apatya leaves to Dussehra to commemorate the day when people got money.