Dussehra (Vijayadashami)

How it is kept

1. 01

   Ravana, Kumbhakarna and Meghnad effigies burnt at dusk after the Ramlila

2. 02

   Shastra puja and Ayudha puja of weapons, vehicles and tools

3. 03

   Shami puja and the giving of shami or apta leaves as gold

4. 04

   Vidyarambha: small children write their first letters

5. 05

   Immersion of Durga images in Bengal

01Rama, the Devi and the shami tree

In the north, the Ramlila of the preceding nights ends with Ravana slain and his effigy, with Kumbhakarna and Meghnad beside him, set alight at dusk. At Ramnagar across the Ganga from Kashi the Ramlila of the Kashi Naresh runs for a month, its stages spread over the town; UNESCO listed Ramlila in 2008. The Mahabharata’s Virata Parva gives another thread: the Pandavas had hidden their weapons in a shami tree for the year in disguise, and took them down again on the day of the battle. So on Vijayadashami shami leaves are exchanged as gold, and weapons, ledgers and tools are worshipped.

02Mahanavami at Vijayanagara, Dasara at Mysuru

Domingo Paes, a Portuguese visitor to Vijayanagara around 1520, watched the Mahanavami there: nine days of the king on a high platform, parades of horses and elephants, wrestling and offerings. The stone platform still stands at Hampi as the Mahanavami Dibba. The Wodeyars carried the festival to Srirangapatna, Raja Wodeyar holding it there in 1610, and then to Mysuru, where on Vijayadashami the golden howdah of Chamundeshwari rides on an elephant through the city. At Kullu the Dussehra begins on Vijayadashami itself and lasts a week, as the valley’s devtas come in palanquins to attend Raghunathji, installed there in the seventeenth century under Raja Jagat Singh.

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