Holi- Festival of colours

English translation

Although the festival of colors started with Holi itself, but now we have given colors the form of happiness and celebration.  That's why whether it is the Kaavan Yatra of Sawan, Ganesh idol immersion, Saraswati idol immersion, we express our enthusiasm with these colours.

According to Hindu mythology, it is said that Prahlad, a devotee of Lord Vishnu, was burnt to death by Hiranyakashyap's sister Sinhika (Holika) in an unsuccessful attempt to kill her.  This festival is celebrated as the joy of the same victory, in which Prahlad i.e. happiness and joy starts shining like Kundan while Holika i.e. the symbol of enmity and malice gets burnt and becomes Holika.

According to another legend, due to Shiva's boon, the demon Tarakasura could be killed only by his son and Shiva was engrossed in penance, Kamadeva and his wife Rati tried to distract him by dancing so that Shiva  Being influenced by love, marry Parvati and a son Shiva will be born.  His attention was distracted, but at the same time Shiva got angry and burnt Kamadeva.  Later, on Rati's lamentation and persuasion, Bholeshankar compassionately gave life to Kamdev.  In this gaiety, Rati gave Brahma Bhoj and colored everyone with joy.

One of the most beautiful Holis of modern times is the Holi of Vrindavan and Barsana.  Here people play Holi of flowers and Lathmar Holi is also held here.  Another context is related to this Brajbhoomi.  When Krishna was young, his body turned blue due to being fed poisoned milk by the demon Putana.  Later Krishna killed the demon.  The demon's body became invisible as soon as it was killed, so people made a symbolic form of Putna and burnt it.  Krishna felt that Radha and other Gopis would not like this Ghanshyamal color of theirs, then Maiya Yashoda said that you paint them in your own color.  Then Krishna expressed his unconditional love by applying color to Radha and the Gopis.

One thing emerges jointly from all these incidents that, Holika Dahan is a symbolic burning, in which the message is that man should burn all his bad qualities (anger, enmity, selfishness, jealousy) in the fire of knowledge and love. And the color of Holi is the symbolic color of love which gives us the message to spread in each other's life.