Hello my Hive family ! I Hope all good and healthy.
Happy Holi to all of you! Holi is the festival of colors. And it's celebrated in a grand way, all over the India. It's actually the festival of victory of good over evil and festival of Love. It is 2 days festival. The first evening is known as Holika Dahan and the next day as Rangwali Holi.
As I am from Rajasthan, we celebrated this festival in a grand way. We have our tradition and rituals differ from other states.
In Holika Dahan people gather in a ground and lit a bonfire(Holika) made up of cowdungs Badkulas, they gathered branches, woods, twigs to build a pyre and then lit the fire and performs rituals infornt of the bonfire. They all sing and dance infront the fire and offers prayers to Lord Vishnu.
The next day after holika dahan people drench each other with colors. Kids love this day. They plays with water guns and water ballons filled with colors throw at each other and plays a lot. People dances and sings place to place and enjoy the day with family and freinds. After playing colors people visit family's, freinds home and enjoy the food and drinks and the sweet which are home made with love ❤..
The lady in the house will start making the cowdungs toys known as badkulas from Mahashivtri to Ekadashi. Then after Ekadashi they will stop making these badkulas. They make and keep in the sun to dry them nicely. They also make Holika Mata from cowdungs, for doing puja and it is burn in the bonfire that night. The cowdung is pure and sacred in Hinduisim so, we Rajasthanis make these Badkulas from only cowdungs.
Like this the lady makes all the badkulas from cowdung-
Here my aunt is making the Badkulas-
In hand they keep the cowdung in round shape.
Then they do hele in middle of the ball, shown in the pic-
They make all the badkulas garland like this almost as long as man in a house is.
Then they keep these to dry nicely. After drying they all looks like in this way-
Then we make a garlands of these Badkulas in a thick jute rope and tie a knot.
The lady of the house also make Dhaal Talwar and Holika Mata like this-
This is Holika Mata-
You can see the eyes, lips and nose is there-
Then we put some turmeric powder, Roli (red powder use for Tilak) and wheat flour as a rituals.
Then after drying these badkulas, make a garlands. Then we will do puja of these as Holika Mata is there.
There is a story about this festival.
Prahlad, a young devotee of Lord Vishnu and son of Evil King Hiranyakasyp. Hiranyakasyap wants to kill his Son Prahlad because he refused to worship his father as a God. Prahlad worship Lord Vishnu. So his father decided to kill him.
Hiranyakasyap send Holika ,his sister and aunt of Prahlad to kill him. Holika had a boon that the fire cannot kill her. So Holika decided to sat with his nephew Prahlad in the bon fire. However she got burnt in the fire and prahlad was saved. Lord Vishnu saved him from his father evil plans. From that day Holi festival is celebrated. Later Lord vishnu killed Hiranyakasyap in the form of Narashima.
Yesterday we went to the ground and witnessed the Holika Dahan.
Here is some photos that I have taken from my phone.
Once again Happy Holi to all.
All the photos and content are my own.
Keep supporting Me and encourage me by voting this post.
Stay connected..with love .. ❤ takecare...🥰