Amazing Facts About Durga Puja You Never Knew!
The Durga Puja we celebrate in October isn't the actual Durga Puja. It's known as akaal bodhan, an untimely sacrifice where Lord Rama prayed to the Goddess before battling Ravana. The actual Durga Puja is celebrated in March and is popularly known as Chaitra Basanti Puja
Durga Puja is all about peace, prosperity and happiness except one thing. Every year, the mode of transport chosen by the Goddess for coming to Earth indicates the fate of the year. The most blessed mode is on an elephant. Horse brings destruction to crops, the boat brings floods and the palanquin shakes the Earth. Believe it or not, the consequences come true to a large extent.
The clay or punya mati is collected from the banks of the Hooghly river but little did you know that the priest who performs the first ritual must venture into forbidden areas. The first soil must be collected from the house of a vaishya and it is the priest who must beg for it. The reason is the Goddess doesn't discriminate between her children and therefore the word sarbojanin applies. The soil from the brothel is considered to be highly pure
We all know that it Mahalaya that marks the beginning of Durga Puja! Wrong! The ritual of chakshu daan or giving the Mother her eye marks the beginning of Durga Puja. It is an ancient ritual that the priest who does the chakshu daan must impart the Goddess her third-eye in absolute darkness. Never the position or the drawing has gone wrong, ever.
Sholaer shaaj was completely traditional and done with Indian cork. However, the wealthy Zamindar families came up front and decided to cover the Goddess in silver foils. The daaker shaaj included posts imported from Germany for that very reason and hence, the new style of adorning Durga came into existence.
It is a fair misconception that the first Durga Puja was celebrated in Kolkata. On the contrary, it was the royal family of Malda, Dinajpur who started the tradition of worshipping the holy mother around 16th-century. The first baroyari puja or twelve friends puja was conceptualized in Hooghly around 1790. The Durga Puja mania hit in Kolkata round 1909.
Who comes along with Goddess Durga? You can easily spot Ganesha, Karthik, Saraswati, Lakshmi and Shiva at the rear. However, there is another member who is present. The kola bou or banana wife is actually the wife of Lord Ganesha, Riddhi-Siddhi. She is adorned as the banana stem, wrapped in clothes, bathed and even worshipped.