Lord Krishna deity in ISKCON temple
Similar to celebrating the birthday functions of our family members, friends and relatives, we must also celebrate the birthday functions of the deities in a grand manner. Festivals like Vinayaka Chaturti, Rama Navami, Hanuman Jayanti, Krishna Jayanti and Vijayadasami are being celebrated in most of the households of the Hindus, and these festivals are considered to be the birthdays of the deities. Apart from these deities, birthdays of some saints and sages like Maharishi Valmiki, Narada, Madhwacharya, Vyasaraja, Shankara, Ramanuja and Guru Raghavendra Swamy are also celebrated by their devotees. During the birthdays of the deities, we can also offer free food along with some dress material to the poor people in order to get their timely blessings.
Still now, during Krishna Jayanti Festival, some parents would decorate their children in the form of Lord Krishna, and by doing that, they would get great happiness by considering their child as Bhagavan Krishna itself. Most of the children would enjoy celebrating the birthdays of Krishna and Vinayaka, since during those festival days they would get good sweets and snacks items like Murukku, Thattai, Adirasam and Kozhukattai etc.
Let us imagine celebrating the Krishna Jayanti festival during the period of Lord Krishna. According to my imagination, the original Lord Krishna would be decorated with nice clothes and he would be given lot of butter to eat on that auspicious day. Neighbours and other Yadava Community people would enjoy the divine beauty of Lord Krishna and they would also stay with Krishna on that entire day, in order to enjoy his divine speech.
Krishna Jayanti and Vinayaka Chaturthi festivals are also specially celebrated by the North Indian people, and the pictures of these two deities would be affixed on the walls on the homes of most of the North Indian Hindu people. But nowadays some of us might lose interest to celebrate these types of deity festivals due to our own problems. Whatever may be, during that day, we must have to forget about our worries, and must celebrate these festivals by considering Lord Vinayaka and Krishna as our own children.
Vijayadasami is also a popular festival dedicated to Ma Durga. People used to celebrate this festival in a grand manner by distributing sweets to their neighbours, friends and well-wishers. Most of the companies would give gift packets to their staffs one day before the Vijayadasami festival day, and in those packets, sweet and snacks items would be kept and some company owners would even offer dress material to their staffs on the occasion of Vijayadasami festival day.
Holi festival is celebrated mostly by North Indians in order to commemorate the victory of Prahalada who killed his evil aunt Holika on that day. Likewise Onam is celebrated in order to mark the event of welcoming king Mahabali to the households of Kerala people, but, nowadays, most of the Hindus who lives throughout India, are welcoming Mahabali to their homes, by considering him as a divine aspect. We can also grandly celebrate the birthdays of Prahalada, Dhruva and Markandeya, since these ancient devotees act as the main pillars of our holy “SANATANA DHARMA”.
“OM”
WRITTEN BY
R.HARISHANKAR