Ganesh Chaturthi Festival of South India

Name of Festival : Ganesh Chaturthi Festival

Major Territory of Celebration
Ganesh Chaturthi Festival is celebrated in South India

Time of celebration (Months)
Ganesh Chaturthi is Hindu calendar month of Bhaadrapada (August – September ).

Worship in Festival
In this day people worship the Lord Ganesh

About Festival
Ganesh or Vinayaka Chaturthi is dedicated to Lord Ganesh the son of Shiva and Parvati .Ganesha Chaturthi is the great Ganesha festival, also known as ‘Vinayak Chaturthi’ or ‘Vinayaka Chavithi’ is celebrated by Hindus around the world as the birthday of Lord Ganesha.

The festival is falls in the Hindu calendar month of Bhaadrapada (August – September ), starting on the shukla chaturthi (fourth day of the waxing moon period).The festival lasts for 10 days, ending on Anant Chaturdashi (fourteenth day of the waxing moon period).

Ganapati an important deity of the Hindus, has different names and manifestations. Ganapati is the God of knowledge, wisdom and the ‘remover of Obstacles’ (‘Vignaharta’) hence called ‘Vigneswar’.

Celebration Ganesh Chaturth
On the occasion of the Ganapati festival, large number of images are made of clay or metal in all possible sizes sometimes even up to twenty feet. People install these image in their houses and worship for one and a half, five, seven, or ten days (Ananda Chaturdashi), 11th day, the image is taken through the streets in a procession accompanied with dancing, singing and thrown into the river, sea or well for immersion or ‘Visarjan’. People chant ‘Ganpati bappa Morya, Agle baras to jaldi aa’. The idol or image should not be kept after this day.

Every day Aarthis is performed and kumkum thrown over the seated Ganesh idol when it is kept at home. It is make ‘Naivedya’ or offerings of twenty one blades of grass Kewra (pandanus buds), a lotus flower, fruits and sweets, 21 pieces of ‘modaks’ before him. After the worship Ganapati it is distributed as ‘Prasad’ (sacred food) to everyone present. People believed that who has controlled the ego is believed to have Ganesha consciousness or God-consciousness.

Lok Manya Bal Gangadhar Tilak was responsible for making Ganesh utsav into a public celebration.Under the Tilak’s encouragement, the festival facilitated community participation and involvement in the form of intellectual discourses, poetry recitals, performances of plays, musical concerts, and folk dances.

This is also celebrated all over India, it is most elaborate in western and southern India. Outside India, it is celebrated widely in Nepal and by Hindus in the United States, Canada