Saturday, September 13, 2008

Happy Onam to all!

Onam celebrates the homecoming of the legendary King Mahabali. Celebrated with great joy in Kerala and other parts of South India, this is a festival filled with elaborate feasts, folk songs, elegant dances, energetic games, elephants, boats and flowers! www.onamfestival.org is an excellent website for the information on this festival.

The Legend goes that the King Mahabali ruled wisely and judiciously, and all the people in his kingdom were happy and prosperous. The King's popularity continued to go endlessly and it also gave him lot power and a big ego. The Gods requested the Lord Vishnu to control the King's power. The Lord Vishnu took form of a Brahmin boy and appeared in front of the King. He asked the King of a donation, and the generous King said ask whatever you want, I will give it. The Boy asked for the land that can be covered in his three Footsteps. The King agreed. The boy suddenly started becoming huge in size and covered the whole sky with one foot, the whole earth with another, and asked the King where he should keep the third footstep. The King recognized that the boy was the Divine himself, and said that please keep your third foot on my head. Lord Vishnu did so, and pushed the King to the nether world. The Lord was compassionate to the King and offered him a boon for all his good qualities. The King with all his love for his people, asked the boon to visit them once a year. The day of the Onam is the homecoming of the beloved King for the people to their homes. They rejoice and celebrate his return in this festival.

Our mythology is so nice. The King symbolizes the Ego, which when grown too much, can cause harm to oneself and others. The Lord Vishnu is the maintainer of the Universe, or the Energy within us that maintains a balance for existence and proper living. The Brahmin boy symbolises the knowledge of life. The knowledge of life shows us that life alone encompasses all realms, and then the Ego humbly bows down. Uncovered by the Ego, we would love to go and meet people, which is what the homecoming of the King symbolises! And devoid of Ego, the celebration is spontaneous!

Also, if we look at the timings of the Festivals in India, we will notice that the work and celebration is put together by wise men in this country. This is the harvesting time, and for a country with huge farmland and large population of farmers, this is a time of great hardwork. The wise sages have given the celebration to go hand in hand by choosing this time for Onam!
Don't forget to check out www.onamfestival.org for the amazing details, fun games and things related to Onam!

Work in Celebration! Celebrate your work!

4 comments:

Abhay Karnataki said...

I had a sumptuous feast at MAS restaurant.. the Kerala/Malayali restarurant in Koramangla. They had arranged the special food on occassion of Onam.

Once again my favourite Banana leaf meal, with about 15 different items in the meal, 3 different types of Payasam! One of the vegetables was made out of Pineapple! Almost all other vegetables were also used.

We had an hour long wait in queue, because this restaurant is famous for its festive offers, and it was worth a wait.

As per Ayurveda, all the 6 tastes should be there, and yes, they were present!

Apart from other things, they served totally vegetarian food today, in contrast to the veg+non veg food they have daily. I liked this part most!

Anwesa said...

gud analysis of indian mytho!keep blogging..

Vivek Barun said...

hey good that the photo has come up. just tweak it to make it look nice .
and also your popular posts widget is not working fine i guess.it shows the complete link.

Anand Jage said...

great photos.. happy onam..thanx for the compliment about blog design.. added few more changes.. let me know if u liked them..
jgd

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