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Durga Puja
The five days when Bengal welcomes Durga as a daughter home, with clay images that are given life by painting their eyes.
About Durga Puja
Durga Puja is the largest festival of Bengal, kept over five days at the end of the monsoon. Artisans model the goddess in clay, and on the day of Mahalaya the eyes are painted in last, in the ritual of chokkhu daan, after which the image is believed to be alive. A priest then invokes the goddess's presence in the image (pran pratishtha), and at the junction of the eighth and ninth days a special worship called sandhi puja is held. A custom still told is that some clay is taken from the thresholds of those at society's margin, meant to show that the goddess accepts everyone. On the last day, married women smear red sindoor on each other, and the images are carried to rivers for immersion, a practice now regulated for the pollution it causes.
Entries tied to it
Also part of it, and being written: Prana pratishtha (The rite that invokes the deity into the image.), Vijayadashami (The tenth day that ends the festival.).
More entries linked to Durga Puja
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Written by the EveryJaadu desk with AI assistance. Background: "Durga Puja" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family, and are described as belief and practice. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Bindi: Vinay Sahay, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Kamakhya Temple: JyotiPN, CC BY-SA 4.0, source