Navaratri

The Hindu calendar is full of festivals; Navaratri among them is the longest. In addition to the nine nights as its name implies ( nava = nine, ratri = nights) , there is an additional tenth day - Vijaya Dasami! It is essentially a festival of victory - victory of good over evil. During this period, Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati are worshipped as three different manifestations of Shakti or Cosmic energy.

The festival commemorates the victory of the goddess Durga (an incarnation of Parvati, consort of Shiva) over the demon Mahishasura. The term Devi represents the divine power that has taken the passionate (raajasic) form to suppress the forces of evil and protect the serene (satvic) qualities. When the forces of injustice, immorality, and untruth have grown to monstrous proportions and are indulging in a death-dance, when selfishness and self-interest are rampant, when men have lost all sense of kindness and compassion, the Aathmic principle assumes the form of Sakthi, takes on the passionate (raajasic) quality, and seeks to destroy the evil elements. This is the inner meaning of the Dasara festival, as navaratri is also called.

Navaratri aptly starts on the first day after Amavasya, the New Moon day. The moon was steadily waning and reached its last stage of losing all the luster from the bright Sun. In Hindu mythology, the unsteady mind with its varying moods and modes is represented by the waxing/ waning moon. In the ideal state, the mind must be always illumined by Divine Knowledge represented by the Sun. But due to ignorance, we manage to cast upon it the dark shadow of our selfish ego which is bent upon fulfilling its worldly selfish desires. As a result, we progressively descend into the depths of spiritual darkness comparable to the full moon steadily declining over the fortnight into Amavasya or New-moon. Hope still exists because the Sun of knowledge continues to shine in the deep recesses of our hearts. We have only to know this, make a determination and reach it with great effort, overcoming the obstacles in the way caused by our misdirected ego

The Hindu mythology is replete with instances of fierce battles between gods and demons. The demons would prove quite a handful for Indra's (the king of gods) army. They would undergo penance for years invoking one of the Gods of the Trinity mostly Shiva, the most gullible of the three. Armed with a boon, they would make a beeline for heaven. The panic stricken gods would run to Lord Vishnu to bail them out. But very often these demons are armed with a boon making them invincible. Sambhu was one

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