49 Fun Facts About Dussehra

Vijayadashami, the formal name of Dussehra, joins the Sanskrit words vijaya and dashami, which together mean what?

Victory on the tenth day covers two triumphs at once: in the north the day marks Rama's defeat of the ten-headed Ravana, in the east the goddess Durga's defeat of the buffalo demon Mahishasura.

The giant Ravana effigies set alight on Dussehra evening are traditionally stuffed with what?

Firecrackers packed inside the towering figures go off as the flames climb, so the demon king's end at dusk comes with a roar.

In 1956 B. R. Ambedkar chose Vijayadashami to lead a mass conversion of his followers at Nagpur into which religion?

Buddhism gained hundreds of thousands of converts in a single day, and Ambedkar had the crowd recite 22 vows that rejected Hindu rites and pledged belief in the equality of all people.

Besides Ravana himself, which two members of his family are burned as effigies at Dussehra's Ravan Dahan?

Kumbhakarna and Meghnad, Ravana's giant brother and his warrior son, go up on the same bonfire, so three figures burn rather than one. Vibhishana, the brother who defected to Rama, is spared.

Which festival, Nepal's longest, has elders press a tika of vermilion onto the foreheads of younger relatives?

Dashain is Nepal's counterpart to Dussehra, and so many people head home to receive the tika from their elders that Kathmandu noticeably empties during the festival.

Mysore Dasara, a ten-day royal spectacle first held at Srirangapatna, is the state festival of which Indian state?

Karnataka calls it Nadahabba, the state festival: a local king began it at Srirangapatna in 1610, taking over a royal Navaratri tradition from the Vijayanagara emperors.

Dussehra is fixed by the lunar month of Ashvin, so in which pair of Gregorian months does it always fall?

September or October is when the waxing-moon count reaches day ten in Ashvin, the seventh month of the Hindu lunisolar year. The date drifts by weeks from one year to the next.

The Navaratri that ends at Dussehra is called Sharada Navaratri, a name that refers to which season?

Autumn is what Sharada means, and this post-monsoon Navaratri is the most celebrated of the seasonal ones. A spring Navaratri in the month of Chaitra ends with Ram Navami instead.

Durga Puja ends on Vijayadashami with a procession in which the clay images of the goddess are finally what?

Immersed in water, the clay images dissolve, and the custom stands for the goddess leaving for the Himalayan home of her husband Shiva until the next year.

Which observance late in Navratri has South Indians clean, garland and worship their tools, vehicles and books?

Ayudha Puja means 'worship of tools', and everything from a soldier's weapons to a student's pens gets a smear of sandalwood paste and vermilion after a polish. Vehicles are painted or polished first.

Durga Puja opens with Mahalaya, when Bengali Hindus perform tarpana by offering water and food to whom?

Their ancestors receive the offerings on the last day of a fortnight given over to the dead, and only then does the festival heralding the goddess's arrival begin.

Telangana's Bathukamma, ending on Durgashtami, stacks what in concentric layers shaped like a temple gopuram?

Flowers gathered from the wild plains, many of them medicinal, are stacked row on row into a cone, and at the end the women set it afloat on a pond or lake.

South Indians venerate books, pens and musical instruments at the close of Navratri chiefly in honour of which goddess?

Saraswati, goddess of learning, is the reason textbooks are set aside untouched for a day and reopened on Vijayadashami. Lakshmi and Parvati share the altar but not the top billing.

In the Mahabharata, Vijayadashami is the day Arjuna dropped his disguise at Virata to rout which army?

The Kauravas attacked Virata in the Pandavas' last year of hiding, and Arjuna beat the entire force after retrieving his weapons from their hiding place. Dussehra thus carries a Mahabharata story as well as a Ramayana one.

In Durga Puja legend, what did Rama prepare to offer on finding only 107 of 108 lotuses?

His eye was about to be plucked out when Durga appeared and restored the missing lotus, which she had hidden to test his devotion.

Hindus across India hold Vijayadashami especially auspicious for doing what?

Starting a new venture on the day is thought to bring success, which is why children are given their first lessons on it and artists and craftsmen take up their tools again.

Which tree's leaves, nicknamed sonpatta, do families in Maharashtra hand out on Dussehra as a token of gold?

Apta leaves, from Bauhinia racemosa, are exchanged as symbolic gold, and even the Warli and Kokna tribal communities keep the custom. Sonpatta simply means 'leaves of gold'.

On each evening of Mysore Dasara, the royal palace is outlined by nearly 100,000 of what?

Light bulbs, nearly 100,000 of them, are switched on each evening of the ten-day festival, so the whole palace glows while music and dance are staged in front of it.

Mysore Dasara marks the slaying of the buffalo demon by which goddess, a form of Durga carried on the lead elephant?

Chamundeshwari's idol rides in the golden howdah, and legend has her killing the demon on the hill above the city, where her temple still stands.

Which royal house of Mysore began its Dasara in 1610 and still has a Maharaja preside over a palace durbar?

The Wodeyars inherited the festival from the Vijayanagara empire, and in 2014, with no head of the family installed, the royal sword was placed on the golden throne and honoured in his place.

Mysore Dasara's procession ends at Bannimantap, where the evening of Vijayadashami brings which closing spectacle?

A torchlight parade, the Panjina Kavayatthu, closes the festival on the ground where the procession halts to worship the banni tree, in which legend says the Pandavas hid their weapons during exile.

Kullu Dussehra begins on Vijayadashami, just as other celebrations end, in which mountain state of India?

Himachal Pradesh's Kullu valley fills for a week as village deities are carried in from across the region, and no Ravana effigy is burned.

Kullu Dussehra centres on which god, whose idol Raja Jagat Singh placed on his own throne as an act of penance?

Raghunath, a form of Rama, was declared the ruling deity of the valley after the king's penance, and gods from the surrounding villages are still carried in each year to pay him homage.

Bastar Dussehra in Chhattisgarh, honouring a local goddess rather than Rama's win over Ravana, runs how many days?

75 days of rites open with Pat Jatra, when the forest and its wood are honoured before timber is cut for the huge chariot that is later hauled through the town.

Most North Indian Ramlila plays follow which 16th-century verse retelling of the Ramayana by the poet Tulsidas?

Ramcharitmanas was written in Awadhi, a form of Hindi, rather than Sanskrit, to open the epic to everyone, which is why ordinary villagers could recite it and act it out.

Delhi's Ramlila Maidan was a pond until the 1930s; the Ramlila moved there from the riverbank behind which monument?

The Red Fort's sandy floodplain hosted the Ramlila until the pond was filled in to give it a new home, and the ground soon became Delhi's stage for mass political rallies, Gandhi's among them.

Indentured labourers carried Ramlila abroad; it is still staged in Fiji, Mauritius and which Caribbean nation?

Trinidad and Tobago's Ramleela at the village of Felicity opens Derek Walcott's 1992 Nobel lecture, in which the poet watches the bamboo frame of a giant effigy being readied for the fire.

Bengali families wake before dawn on Mahalaya for the Mahishasuramardini programme, aired every year since the 1930s by which broadcaster?

All India Radio tried a remake in 1976 voiced by film star Uttam Kumar, and listeners disliked it so much that the original, narrated by Birendra Krishna Bhadra, was brought back.

The dhunuchi naach danced before Durga's idol during Durga Puja is performed while holding what?

An incense burner, in which coconut husk and incense smoulder, is swung to the beat of the dhak drums, and many puja committees hold contests for the best dancer.

At Kerala's Vidyarambham rite on Vijayadashami, a child's first letters are written in what?

Grains of rice spread before the child take the first letters, traced with the child's own finger as an elder guides the hand, and lessons in music and dance begin on the same day.

Tamil Nadu's Navaratri golu fills an odd number of stepped shelves with a festive display of what?

Dolls and figurines fill the steps by rank, with the gods on the top tiers and scenes of everyday life, such as a family wedding, set out below them.

In Mewar, both Durga and Rama were honoured on Vijayadashami, a major festival for which warrior community?

Rajputs marked the day with their rana, at once king and high priest, leading the worship of the shami tree and then setting free a jay, a bird held sacred to Rama.

During Nepal's biggest festival, seeds sown in a kalash on day one sprout into a yellow grass called what?

Jamara grows five or six inches tall by the main day and is given to younger relatives along with the tika as a blessing of abundance. Barley is the usual seed.

Why, by tradition, do Nepalis fly kites in the run-up to their biggest festival?

Asking the gods to stop rain is the folk reason, since the festival marks the monsoon's end, and a cut kite string draws shouts of 'changa chet'. The sky over Kathmandu fills with them.

Which Rajasthan city on the Chambal River is known for its Dussehra fair?

Kota's fair builds to Dussehra evening, when a Ravana effigy 75 feet tall or more is set alight before the crowd.

Telangana's Bathukamma stack is crowned with Gauramma, a small idol of the goddess Gowri made from what?

Turmeric is lifted off the stack before it is floated away, and married women then rub a paste of it on their mangalsutra as protection for their husbands. Nothing of the idol is wasted.

The spring Navaratri in the month of Chaitra ends on Ram Navami, a festival celebrating which event?

Rama's birth is placed in the month of Chaitra, so the spring festival's last day doubles as his birthday, kept with special pomp in Ayodhya, the city held to be his birthplace.

Which elephant carried Mysore Dasara's golden howdah from 1999 until Arjuna took over for the 2012 procession?

Balarama took over after his predecessor Drona was electrocuted while grazing in 1998, and his own successor Arjuna died in 2023 in a fight with a wild elephant.

Mahanavami reliefs on the Hazara Rama temple and a 'Mahanavami Dibba' platform survive in which ruined capital?

Hampi's great stone platform belonged to the Vijayanagara kings, whose festival European travellers described in their accounts and whose pageantry Mysore's Dasara still carries on.

Bastar Dussehra pays homage to which goddess, whose giant wooden chariot villagers haul through Jagdalpur?

Danteshwari is the Bastar region's presiding goddess, and among her festival's closing rites is the Muria Durbar, an assembly where village leaders bring the public's problems to be heard.

At Bengal's Sindur Khela on Vijayadashami, women dab vermilion on each other's shankha, pala and noa; what are those?

Bangles of conch shell, coral and iron mark a married Bengali Hindu woman, so reddening them is a prayer for each other's long married life. The goddess gets her own sindoor first, on forehead and feet.

The Nabapatrika at Durga Puja, a bundle of nine plants draped as a bride, is popularly mistaken for a lone what?

Banana tree is the popular reading: Bengalis call the bundle Kola Bou, the banana bride, and many take her for the wife of Ganesha, though its nine plants each stand for a form of the goddess.

Nepal's national Phulpati bundle reaches Kathmandu after a three-day walk of about 169 km from which town?

Gorkha was the seat of the Shah kings, and the bundle was received at the royal palace until the monarchy fell in 2008; it now goes to the president's residence instead.

Which Kathmandu temple, normally closed to the public, opens its gates for a single day during Nepal's biggest festival?

Taleju Temple opens only on Maha Navami, when thousands file in to honour the goddess, the same day that drivers and craftsmen have their vehicles and tools blessed.

At Madikeri Dasara in Kodagu, on which part of the body is the Karaga, a vessel of nine kinds of grain, carried?

The shaved head of the bearer takes the Karaga from the first night of Navaratri, and the town's Mariamma temples each send one, so the festival opens with a set of them. Ten decorated floats then depict gods slaying demons.

The month-long Ramlila at Ramnagar is staged across the Ganges from which holy city?

Varanasi's Maharaja began the Ramnagar plays around 1830, and they run a month because the whole epic is performed, on stages around the town each named for a place in the story.

In Patna, Bihar's capital, crowds gather to watch a huge Ravana effigy burn at which venue?

Gandhi Maidan was called Patna Lawns before independence, and Bihar's Quit India movement of 1942 was launched from the same ground that now hosts the city's Ravana burning.

Nepal's biggest festival closes on Kojagrat Purnima, a full-moon night whose name literally asks what?

Who is awake is the question Lakshmi is said to ask as she tours the earth that night, so families sit up late, often playing cards, in the hope of her blessing. It is also called Sharad Purnima.

Kerala's name for the day when tools and books are set aside for worship until Vijayadashami is what?

Pujaveppu means 'keeping implements for veneration', and the books and tools stay untouched until they are taken up again. The same pause is observed in offices and workshops.