The significance of Holi - the festival of colours!
Wish you all a happy holi! Let us talk about why we celebrate Holi.
Happy Holi to everyone! We celebrate Holi as the festival of colours, with a huge bonfire. It is indeed a celebration that marks the peak of spring in India. The celebration marks three different events of our civilisation.
Story of Radha and Krishna - why we use colours on Holi.
Krishna was dark-skinned. As a boy, he would complain to his mother about Radha being fair while he was dark. So his mother told him to put colour on Radha’s face so that she could be any colour he wanted. Krishna put colour on Radha’s face, but Radha immediately put colour on Krishna’s face too. Thus started the celebration of love between Radha and Krishna. It signifies that love and affection are beyond the colour of our skin.
Story of Kamadev - the relevance of fire and Chandan lep on holi
Lord Shiva’s wife, Sati, cannot bear her father insulting her husband. In a fit of anger, she immolates herself in a fire. Lord Shiva, seething with passion, is inconsolable. Lord Shiva performs that great Tandava. And then he performs a severe penance to bind his infinite anger and fury and renounced the world.
Meanwhile, Goddess Sati reincarnates as Goddess Parvati and, from quite a young age, starts a penance seeking Lord Shiva as her husband.
Seeing that Lord Shiva has renounced the world, a demon, Tarakasura, gets a boon of immortality with the condition that he can only be killed by a son of Lord Shiva. Tarakasura then wreaks havoc across the world.
Aware of Tarakasura’s boons, the Devas hope Lord Shiva will marry Goddess Parvati and have a son soon. However, both seem engrossed in penance and detached from worldly pleasures. They seek the help of Kama Dev, the god of desire, to facilitate a marriage between them.
Kama Dev has the power to induce desire in people to maintain the circle of life. He has a special unfailing arrow fired from a sugarcane bow. Kama Dev spots Lord Shiva meditating with some sages. Lord Shiva is sharing knowledge with great sages without speaking through dhyana.
Taking this opportunity, Kama Dev shoots his arrow at Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva is annoyed and angry and opens his eyes and sees Kama Dev, and opens his third eye to burn Kama Dev to ashes.
This day is celebrated with a bonfire to signify the burning of desires in our pursuit of knowledge. To ease Kama Dev’s pain, it is also customary to apply sandalwood paste - chandan lep on this day. In a way, we do not celebrate the END of desire but merely the inference of desires in pursuit of knowledge.
Note: Kama Dev’s arrow did not fail. Lord Shiva married Goddess Parvati, and their son Kartikeya killed the demon Tarakasura. Kama Dev was reborn as the son of Lord Krishna and Rukmini.
Story of Holika - the relevance of bonfire
The demon king Hiranyakashipu gets a boon that he cannot be killed either by man or animal, either by day or night, either by weapon or poison, neither on land nor in the sky. With this complicated boon, he is immortal and becomes a powerful tyrant. However, his son, Prahlad, is a devotee of Lord Vishnu. Hiranyakashipu considers this to be a betrayal and makes various attempts to kill Prahlad. Prahlad faces all these attempts by invoking Lord Vishnu and is saved.
To kill Prahlad, Hiranyakashipu’s sister Holika devises a plan. Because of a boon, Holika is unaffected by fire. So the plan is for Holika to hold her nephew Prahlad in a fire pyre and kill him. As this is attempted, Prahlad invokes the name of Lord Vishnu, and by a miracle, instead of Prahlad, Holika is burnt in the fire.
Therefore this day, a fire is lit, signifying good's victory over evil.
A note
These are stories that contain the knowledge of our ancients. There are various other stories within different dharmic folds. If you know of such stories please mention them in the comments.
I do not know of the significance of Bhaang during Holi. Is it part of the ritual? Is there some story about that? Let me know in the comments section.