Dussehra 2029

Dussehra — Vijaya Dashami, the "tenth day of victory" — falls on the Shukla Dashami of Ashvin, immediately after Navaratri. It is the single date in the Hindu calendar that two of the most beloved Sanskrit epics converge upon, and several historical traditions besides.

The Valmiki Ramayana places on this day the climax of the great battle at Lanka. After Hanuman has located Sita, after the vanara army has built the bridge of stones across the strait, after weeks of duel and aerial combat in which Rama and Lakshmana fell and were revived by Hanuman's mountain of herbs, Rama meets Ravana for the final encounter. Ravana, the ten-headed rakshasa-king, son of the rishi Vishrava and the daitya princess Kaikesi, was no ordinary asura — he was a great Shiva-devotee, a profound scholar of the Vedas, a master of music whose chants of Shiva-stotra would melt rock, and a kshatriya of formidable martial training. His one and undeniable failing was that he could not let go of Sita after he had carried her away. The duel takes a day; each time Rama shoots off one of his heads, another grows. Vibhishana — Ravana's brother, who had defected to Rama — finally tells Rama the secret: Ravana keeps the amrita of his life in his navel. Rama draws the Brahmastra given to him by sage Agastya, addresses it with the proper mantra, and releases it; the arrow strikes Ravana's navel and ends him at sunset. Rama, having performed the rare act of killing a Brahmin, performs penance under Vibhishana's guidance, restores the kingdom of Lanka to Vibhishana, and prepares for the long journey home that will end at Diwali twenty days later. The day Rama killed Ravana is therefore the day each Ram-Lila enactment ends and the day every effigy of Ravana is burned.

The Devi Mahatmya in the Markandeya Purana places on this same day the killing of Mahishasura by Durga, the tenth day of her nine-night battle. The two stories — Rama on Ravana, Devi on Mahisha — share more than a date: both are great-armed adversaries laid low by a force that had to gather itself before it could equal them. Vijayadashami therefore is read as the day on which a long-prepared shakti finally translates into victory; it is the day the mahapurusha's mantra is completed.

A third tradition belongs to the Mahabharata. After the Pandavas' twelve years of vanavas and one year of agyatvas (incognito living), they were to spend the agyatvas hidden — and they had hidden their divine weapons in a shami tree at the edge of the kingdom of Virata, where they served as servants in the king's household. On Vijayadashami, the agyatvas ended; the Pandavas retrieved their weapons from the shami tree and worshipped them. From this comes Shastra-Puja — the worship of weapons and tools on this day — and the long-living tradition of exchanging shami (apta) leaves on Vijayadashami as gold, in memory of the Pandavas' returning to their kshatriya dharma.

A fourth tradition is the historical-political one. The Vijayanagara emperors observed the ten-day Mahanavami-Dasara at Hampi as the great state festival of the empire, and the Wodeyars after them at Mysore continued the practice; the Mysore Dasara of today, with its caparisoned elephants and the Chamundeshwari procession on Vijayadashami, is a direct continuation. The Marathas under Shivaji observed it as the day of starting military campaigns — the new harvest was in, the monsoon was over, the army was rested. Bengal observes the day as Bijoya Dashomi, the conclusion of Durga Puja, when the goddess's clay image is carried in procession to the river and immersed; the immersion both ends the festival and sends the goddess back to her marital home at Kailasa.

The burning of the Ravana effigy with Meghanada and Kumbhakarna therefore carries the layered weight of all these stories: a literal historical climax, an inner victory of shakti over the asura, the restoration of kshatriya dharma, the inauguration of new beginnings. The ten heads of Ravana — readers of the Vedas, scholars of music, masters of statecraft, and yet held captive to one unrelinquished desire — are traditionally said to represent ten inner enemies: kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya, ahankara, anyaya, anutapa, and amanavata. The bonfire at sunset is therefore at once the literal end of Ravana, the symbolic end of the year's accumulated negativities, and the first lit signal of the auspicious season that will end at the lamps of Diwali.