Dhanteras 2030

Dhanteras — Dhana-trayodashi, the thirteenth tithi of the dark fortnight of Kartika — opens the five-day Diwali festival. The word breaks into dhana (wealth, in the wider Vedic sense of all that nourishes the household — health, knowledge, gold, food, herbs) and trayodashi (the thirteenth tithi). The day is not, as it is sometimes popularly read, only a shopping day; the Puranas anchor it on two distinct mythological events whose conjunction at this Krishna-Trayodashi gives the day its particular shape.

The first event is the emergence of Dhanvantari from the Samudra Manthana. The Bhagavata Purana and the Vishnu Purana describe the churning of the milk-ocean by devas and asuras, using Mount Mandara as the rod and the serpent-king Vasuki as the rope. The fourteen treasures emerge one by one — the poison Halahala (which Shiva drank), Kamadhenu the wish-cow, Uchchaishravas the celestial horse, Airavata the white elephant, the Kaustubha jewel, the Kalpavriksha, the apsaras, Chandra, Varuni, and others — until at the close of the churning the great being Dhanvantari himself rises from the waters, bearing in his hands a golden vessel containing the amrita and the body of knowledge called Ayurveda. Dhanvantari is the divine physician, a partial avatara of Vishnu, the deva of healing and longevity; his emergence on Krishna-Trayodashi of Kartika is the original act for which Dhanteras is named. The amrita he carries is wealth in its truest sense — life that does not end — and the Ayurveda that emerges with him is the body of practice by which that life is preserved. This is why the day is observed not only as a shopping day but as a day of household worship of Dhanvantari, and why, in modern India, Dhanteras is observed by the medical community and by the Ayurveda lineages as Dhanvantari Jayanti — the doctor's day before the patient's.

The second event is the emergence of Lakshmi from the same Samudra Manthana, two days later — on Kartika Amavasya, which is Diwali itself. The Padma Purana and Vishnu Purana describe how, after all the lesser treasures had risen, the goddess herself rose seated on a lotus, holding a garland; she chose Vishnu among all the gathered beings and placed the garland around his neck. Dhanteras therefore is the precursor — the household is being prepared, in a literal sense, to welcome the goddess two nights later. The cleaning and decorating of the house, the buying of metals (gold, silver, brass — metals that do not tarnish, so that their welcome of Lakshmi is durable), and the lighting of the first thirteen lamps facing south are all rehearsals for the puja that will be performed on Amavasya.

A third story explains the lamps facing south. The Skanda Purana describes a young king named Hima whose horoscope predicted that he would die at the bite of a serpent on the fourth night after his wedding. His young wife, refusing to accept this, gathered all the gold and silver of the household on Dhanteras (the third night, the night before the predicted bite) and piled the metals at the threshold; she lit row upon row of clay lamps around them, and she herself sat beside the king through the night, singing softly so that he would not sleep. When Yama himself approached the chamber at midnight in the form of a serpent, he was blinded by the brilliance of the metal-and-lamp light; unable to enter, he sat down at the threshold and listened to the songs through the night. By dawn his hour of striking had passed, and he left without taking the king. From this story descends the practice of lighting thirteen lamps on the evening of Dhanteras with one specifically placed facing south — south being the direction of Yama, the offering a polite request that he pass over the household this year — and the practice of leaving lamps burning through the long night that connects Dhanteras to Naraka Chaturdashi.

The practice of buying gold on Dhanteras descends from the convergence of these three stories: gold does not tarnish (so the welcome is permanent), gold is the most concentrated form of dhana that the household can carry across the threshold (so the act of bringing it in is the household's most concentrated invitation to Lakshmi), and gold has been the metal at the household entrance in the Hima story (so the act of buying it on this day re-enacts the warding of Yama). What the modern Dhanteras advertisements often miss is the Ayurveda layer — Dhanvantari is the older deity of the day, and the practice the Puranas more often emphasise is the worship of Dhanvantari at dusk: a small offering of turmeric, honey, and tulsi to a brass vessel placed before the household shrine, a prayer for the health of every member of the household, and a vow to take care of the body as the household's first wealth in the coming year. The day teaches that the household that will receive Lakshmi well is one whose health, prepared first, can carry her gifts.