Ayudha Puja is a part of the Navratri festival, a Hindu festival which is traditionally celebrated in India. The festival falls on the tenth day of the bright half of Moon’s cycle of 15 days in the month of September. In Karnataka, the celebration is for killing of the demon king Mahishasura by goddess Durga.
About Ayudha Puja in brief
Ayudha Puja is a part of the Navratri festival, a Hindu festival which is traditionally celebrated in India. The festival falls on the tenth day of the bright half of Moon’s cycle of 15 days in the month of September. In Karnataka, the celebration is for killing of the demon king Mahishasura by goddess Durga. In Orissa, tools traditionally used for cultivation like plough, war like sword and dagger, and inscription writing like \”karani\” or ‘lekhani’ are worshiped. The principal Shakti goddesses worshiped during the Ayudha puja are Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati, apart from various types of equipment; it is on this occasion when weapons are worshipped by soldiers and tools are revered by artisans. It is said that on Vijayadashami day Arjuna, third of the five Pandava brothers, retrieved his weapons of war from the hole in the Shami tree where he had hidden it before proceeding on the forced exile.
In the Kurukshetra war that ensued,Arjuna was victorious. Since then it is believed that this day is auspicious to begin any new venture. Another legend is of a pre-battle ritual involving yagna or ritual sacrifice or as part of Ayudh Puja. The past practice is narrated in the Tamil version of Mahabharata epic. In this ritual, prevalent than in Tamil Nadu, ‘Kalapalli’ was a ‘sacrifice to the battlefield. Similar practices were prevalent in North Karnataka but also the human sacrifice was done one day after the Dasara on a stone altar outside a temple. This is disputed as it is not mentioned in Mahabharta perabata perabattu. The Puja focuses specific attention to one’s profession and its related tools and connotes that a divine force is working behind it to perform well and for getting the proper reward.
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This page is based on the article Ayudha Puja published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
