Dipavali (IAST: ), commonly known as Diwali (), is the Hindu festival of lights, with variations celebrated in other Indian religions such as Jainism and Sikhism. It symbolises the spiritual victory of Dharma over Adharma, light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. Diwali is celebrated during the Hindu lunisolar months of Ashvin (according to the amanta tradition) and Kārtika – between around mid-October and mid-November.The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 540 "Diwali /dɪwɑːli/ (also Diwali) noun a Hindu festival with lights...".Diwali Encyclopædia Britannica (2009) The celebrations generally last five or six days.
Diwali is connected to various religious events, deities and personalities, such as being the day Rama returned to his kingdom in Ayodhya with his wife Sita and his brother Lakshmana after defeating the demon king Ravana. It is also widely associated with Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, and Ganesha, the god of wisdom and the remover of obstacles.Suzanne Barchers (2013). The Big Book of Holidays and Cultural Celebrations, Shell Education, Other regional traditions connect the holiday to Vishnu, Krishna, Durga, Shiva, Kali, Hanuman, Kubera, Yama, Yami, Dhanvantari, or Vishvakarman.
Primarily a Hindu festival, variations of Diwali are also celebrated by adherents of other faiths. The Jains observe their own Diwali which marks the final liberation of Mahavira. The Sikhs celebrate Bandi Chhor Divas to mark the release of Guru Hargobind from a Mughal prison. Newar Buddhists, unlike other Buddhists, celebrate Diwali by worshipping Lakshmi, while the Hindus of Eastern India and Bangladesh generally, celebrate Diwali by worshipping the goddess Kali.McDermott and Kripal p.72
During the festival, celebrants illuminate their homes, temples and workspaces with diyas (oil lamps), candles and lanterns. Hindus, in particular, have a ritual oil bath at dawn on each day of the festival. Diwali is also marked with fireworks as well as the decoration of floors with rangoli designs and other parts of the house with jhalars. Food is a major focus, with families partaking in feasts and sharing mithai. The festival is an annual homecoming and bonding period not only for families but also for communities and associations, particularly those in urban areas, which organise activities, events, and gatherings. Many towns organise community parades and fairs, as well as music and dance performances in parks. Some Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs send Diwali greeting cards to family members near and far during the festive season, occasionally with boxes of Indian confectionery. Another aspect of the festival is remembering the ancestors.
Diwali is also a major cultural event for the Hindu, Sikh, and Jain diaspora.India Journal: 'Tis the Season to be Shopping Devita Saraf, The Wall Street Journal (August 2010) The main day of the festival of Diwali (the day of Lakshmi Puja) is an official holiday in Fiji,Public Holidays , Government of Fiji Guyana,Public Holidays , Guyana India, Malaysia,Public Holidays , Government of Malaysia Mauritius, Myanmar,Public Holidays , Government of Myanmar Nepal,Public Holidays , Government of Nepal Pakistan,Pakistan parliament adopts resolution for Holi, Diwali, Easter holidays , The Times of India (16 March 2016) Singapore,Public Gazetted Holidays , Government of Singapore Sri Lanka, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago,Official Public Holidays , Government of Trinidad & Tobago and symbolically in the US states of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and California.
Etymology Diwali comes from Dipavali (), meaning . The term is a compound of the Sanskrit words Monier Monier Williams (2008 updated, Harvard University), Sanskrit English dictionary, दीप, p. 481 and .Monier Monier Williams (2008 updated, Harvard University), Sanskrit English dictionary, आवलि, p. 155
Dates The five-day celebration is observed every year sometime between the second half of October to the first half of November coinciding with a new moon (amāvasyā) as per the Hindu lunisolar calendar.
The festivities begin two days before amāvasyā, on Dhanteras, and extend two days after, until the second (or 17th) day of the month of Kartik. (According to Indologist Constance Jones, this night ends the lunar month of Ashwin and starts the month of Kartik – but see this note and Amanta and Purnima systems.) The darkest night is the apex of the celebration.
The festival climax is on the third day, which is called the main Diwali. It is an official holiday in a dozen countries, while the other festive days are regionally observed as either public or optional restricted holidays in India. In Nepal, it is also a multiday festival, although the days and rituals are named differently, with the climax being called the Tihar festival by Hindus and the Swanti festival by Buddhists.
History The five-day festival originated in the Indian subcontinent and is likely a fusion of harvest festivals in ancient India. It is mentioned in early Sanskrit texts, such as the Padma Purana and the Skanda Purana, both of which were composed between the 7th and 10th centuries. The diyas (lamps) are mentioned in Skanda Kishore Purana as symbolising parts of the sun, which is described as the cosmic giver of light and energy to all life and which seasonally undergoes a transitions in the Hindu calendar month of Kartik.
Emperor Harsha refers to Deepavali in the 7th-century Sanskrit play Nagananda as Dīpapratipadotsava (dīpa = light, pratipadā = first day, utsava = festival), where lamps were lit and newly engaged brides and grooms received gifts.BN Sharma, Festivals of India, South Asia Books, , pp. 9–35 Rajasekhara referred to Deepavali as Dipamalika in his 9th-century Kavyamimamsa, wherein he mentions the tradition of whitewashing and decorating homes, streets, and markets with oil lamps at night.
Diwali was also described by numerous travellers from outside India. In his 11th-century memoir on India, the Persian traveller and historian Al Biruni wrote of Deepavali being celebrated by Hindus on the day of the New Moon in the month of Kartika.R.N. Nandi (2009), in A Social History of Early India (Editor: B. Chattopadhyaya), Volume 2, Part 5, Pearson Education, , pp. 183–184 The Venetian merchant and traveller Niccolò de' Conti visited India in the early 15th century and wrote in his memoir, "on another of these festivals they fix up within their temples, and on the outside of the roofs, an innumerable number of oil lamps... which are kept burning day and night" and that the families would gather, "clothe themselves in new garments", sing, dance, and feast. The 16th-century Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes wrote of his visit to the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire, where Dipavali was celebrated in October with householders illuminating their homes, and their temples, with lamps. It is mentioned in the Ramayana that Diwali was celebrated for only 2 years in Ayodhya.
Islamic historians of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire era also mentioned Diwali and other Hindu festivals. A few, notably the Mughal emperor Akbar, welcomed and participated in the festivities, whereas others banned such festivals as Diwali and Holi, as Aurangzeb did in 1665.
Publications from the time of the British Raj also made mention of Diwali, such as the note on Hindu festivals published in 1799 by Sir William Jones, a philologist known for his early observations on Sanskrit and Indo-European languages. In his paper on The Lunar Year of the Hindus, Jones, then based in Bengal, noted four of the five days of Diwali in the autumn months of Aswina-Cartica as the following: Bhutachaturdasi Yamaterpanam (2nd day), Lacshmipuja dipanwita (the day of Diwali), Dyuta pratipat Belipuja (4th day), and Bhratri dwitiya (5th day). The Lacshmipuja dipanwita, remarked Jones, was a "great festival at night, in honour of Lakshmi, with illuminations on trees and houses".
Epigraphy
Sanskrit inscriptions in stone and copper mentioning Diwali, occasionally alongside terms such as Dipotsava, Dipavali, Divali and Divalige, have been discovered at numerous sites across India. Examples include a 10th-century Rashtrakuta empire copper plate inscription of Krishna III (939–967 CE) that mentions Dipotsava, and a 12th-century mixed Sanskrit-Kannada Sinda inscription discovered in the Isvara temple of Dharwad in Karnataka where the inscription refers to the festival as a "sacred occasion". According to Lorenz Franz Kielhorn, a German Indologist known for translating many Indic inscriptions, this festival is mentioned as Dipotsavam in verses 6 and 7 of the Ranganatha temple Sanskrit inscription of the 13th-century Venad Hindu king Ravivarman Samgramadhira. Part of the inscription, as translated by Kielhorn, reads:
the auspicious festival of lights which disperses the most profound darkness, which in former days was celebrated by the kings Ila, Kartavirya and Sagara, (...) as Sakra (Indra) is of the gods, the universal monarch who knows the duties by the three Vedas, afterwards celebrated here at Ranga for Vishnu, resplendent with Lakshmi resting on his radiant lap.
Jain inscriptions, such as the 10th-century Saundatti inscription about a donation of oil to Jinendra worship for the Diwali rituals, speak of Dipotsava. Another early 13th-century Sanskrit stone inscription, written in the Devanagari script, has been found in the north end of a mosque pillar in Jalore, Rajasthan evidently built using materials from a demolished Jain temple. The inscription states that Ramachandracharya built and dedicated a drama performance hall, with a golden cupola, on Diwali.
Religious significance
The religious significance of Diwali varies regionally within India. One tradition links the festival to legends in the Hindu epic Ramayana, where Diwali is the day Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, and Hanuman reached Ayodhya after a period of 14 years in exile, following the defeat of the demon king Ravana and his army.” Throughout the epic, Rama's decisions were always in line with dharma (duty) and the Diwali festival serves as a reminder for followers of Hinduism to maintain their dharma in day-to-day life.
Per another popular tradition, in the Dvapara Yuga period, Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, killed the demon Narakasura, who was the evil king of Pragjyotishapura, near present-day Assam, and released 16000 girls held captive by Narakasura. Diwali was celebrated as a signifier of triumph of good over evil after Krishna's Victory over Narakasura. The day before Diwali is remembered as Naraka Chaturdashi, the day on which Narakasura was killed by Krishna.
Many Hindus associate the festival with Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity, and wife of Vishnu. According to Pintchman, the start of the 5-day Diwali festival is stated in some popular contemporary sources as the day goddess Lakshmi was born from Samudra Manthana, the churning of the cosmic ocean of milk by the Devas (gods) and the Asuras (demons) – a Vedic legend that is also found in several Puranas such as the Padma Purana, while the night of Diwali is when Lakshmi chose and wed Vishnu. Along with Lakshmi, who is representative of Vaishnavism, Ganesha, the elephant-headed son of Parvati and Shiva of Shaivism tradition, is remembered as one who symbolises ethical beginnings and the remover of obstacles.
Hindus of eastern India associate the festival with the Goddess Kali, who symbolises the victory of good over evil.Buck, C. (2008). Hindu Festivals, Festivals in Indian Society (2 Vols. Set), Vol 1, Hindus from the Braj region in northern India, parts of Assam, as well as southern Tamil and Telugu communities view Diwali as the day the god Krishna overcame and destroyed the evil demon king Narakasura, in yet another symbolic victory of knowledge and good over ignorance and evil.