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Home > Other Astrological Information > Events / Festivals > Baisakhi / Visakha
India's rich and glorious civilization is mirrored in its innumerable fairs and festivals. They mark the seasons that signal to man the time for work and the time for play and relaxation, the commencement of agricultural cycle with sowing in spring, and its culmination with the harvesting of the golden grain. Baisakhi also called Vaisakhai, is a harvest festival is celebrated on the thirteenth of April according to solar calender. It is celebrated in North India particularly in Punjab, when the Rabi crop is ready for harvesting. On these occasions, men and women adorn themselves with gay colored clothes and traditional jewellery. Generally, the sites of these festivals are on the banks of rivers which have their sacred import with myths and legends woven around their origin and names.
Baisakhi has a special meaning for Sikhs. On this day in 1699, their tenth Guru Gobind Singh organized the order of the Khalsa. On this day, the Muslim rulers, in barbaric cruelty threw Guru Arjun Das the fifth Sikh Guru alive into a cauldron of boiling oil. Again, on this day in 1875, Swamy Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj, a reformed sect of Hindus who are devoted to the Vedas for spiritual guidance and have discarded idol worship. This day is once again of immense religious import to the Buddhists because Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment and Nirvana on this auspicious day. In Bengal, Baisakhi day is observed as the Naba Barsha. On April 14, the people take a ritual bath in the River Ganga or any other river with floral patterns drawn on the entrance floor of their homes with a paste made of rice powder. The festival is celebrated twice a year in Himachal Pradesh in honor of Goddess Jwalamukhi. This happens in the months of Vaisakha and Kartika masam. A temple near the hot springs is dedicated that a jet of flames issues forth from the mouth of the deity. This flame is held sacred and is worshipped. The neighboring hot springs are a popular place for a holy dip by thousands of pilgrims on the days when the fairs are held.
In South India, Baisakhi is celebrated to mark the Tami and Telugu New Year. In a ceremonial march, people take out wooden chariots in procession. The temples in Kerala celebrate Pooram festivals usually in honor of Vishnu. Among them the Pooram observed in the Vadakkunathan Swamy (Lord Shiva temple) of Trichur is famous. The temple stands in the heart of the town in the Tekkin Kadu Maidan, once a forest of rosewood trees. Many smaller Poorams called Cheru Poorams also take place.
In Kerala, caparisoned elephants with gold plated ornaments coverings embellished with garlands and colored umbrellas, mohair whisks, round, colored hand fans, along with Panchavadyam emerge from the surrounding temples. The elephants converge on the main temple after circumambulation and prayers and thereafter disperse. In the afternoon, the primary Pooram commences with the two parties called Thiruvambadi and Paramekkavu, each along with its fifteen fully caparisoned elephant accompany the traditional musicians of Kerala. After the procession has gone round the temple, it arrives on the vast maidan by evening. The elephants of various parties line up opposite each other and exchange their brightly colored umbrellas to perform the Kudamattam ceremony. This is a most impressive and spectacular sight. The entire atmosphere resounds with the high notes of music and by 9pm the first Pooram comes to an end. The second Pooram commences at midnight with a peculiar musical tone called the Elangithara Melan, played under a tree called the elangi. Then starts a procession headed by fire torches and followed by the elephants that make for a thrilling scene, surpassing the beauty and grandeur of the earlier Pooram. The tempo of the Pooram comes to an end by early morning with a competitive display of fireworks between the two parties. The celebrations attract not only the people of Kerala but others from far and wide. Another important festival in South India takes place in honour of the Goddess Kamarchi Amman whose temple is located in Pondicherry. The Goddess is worshipped three times a day when the idol is duly decorated with jewellery and flowers is taken out in daily processions on different mounts consisting of a horse, a lion, a swing or a chariot. Musicians accompany the procession and on the ninth day of the festival, between 10am to 5pm, the image is placed in a wooden chariot and taken out in a grand procession through Pondicherry city.
The many festivals or Bihus of the Assamese are a celebration of life, of joie de vivre and manifestation of the exuberance of the people. Perhaps the most import of these festivals is the Rangali Bihu celebrated on the April 14, the Spring Festival and the Assamese equivalent of Baisakhi. Young women clad in their silken attire, dance to the rhythm of the drum. Their costume consists of a sarong-like skirt known as the mekhala usually hand woven in the golden fibered muga silk of Assam with wide decorated borders in bright red. They wear matching chaddars of the same silken fabric draped over the upper part of the body and tucked in at the waist. The galaxy of the young women and men dancing and singing at the time of the Rangali Bihu is a colorful festival. Festivals are occasions when people cast aside their misunderstandings and ill feelings and refurbish relations of fellow beings.
2009: April 13, 2009