Five days of light
DIWALI, from the Sanskrit for a row of lights, is one of the biggest festivals in India and among Hindus, Sikhs and Jains around the world. It falls in October or November, around the darkest night of the Hindu month of Kartika, and lasts about five days. Homes are cleaned, windows and doorsteps are lined with the clay OIL LAMP called a DIYA, and FAMILY members gather for a PRAYER, a meal and fireworks.
For many HINDU families, Diwali celebrates the return of Prince Rama to his city of Ayodhya after defeating the demon king Ravana, when the people lit lamps to welcome him home. The full story, from the kidnapping of Sita to Hanuman's leap across the sea, is told on our Hindu mythology page.
A goddess who visits clean houses
On the main night of Diwali, many families worship LAKSHMI, the GODDESS of wealth and good fortune, who is believed to visit homes that are clean, bright and welcoming. Doors and windows are left open for her, and a RANGOLI is drawn on the floor by the entrance: an intricate pattern made from coloured powder, rice flour, sand or flower petals. MARIGOLD garlands hang over doorways.
For many business families in western India, Diwali is also the start of the financial year. Traders open new account books and ask for Lakshmi's blessing on them, a custom still followed by some firms today.
A Guru freed from a fort
Sikhs celebrate the same days as Bandi Chhor Divas, the day of liberation. In 1619 the sixth Sikh Guru, Guru Hargobind, was released from Gwalior Fort, where the Mughal emperor had imprisoned him. He refused to leave unless fifty-two Hindu princes held there with him were freed too. Told that only those who could hold on to his cloak could leave, he had a cloak made with fifty-two long tassels, and every prince walked out holding one. The Golden Temple in Amritsar is lit with thousands of lamps each year to mark it. Our Sikhism page covers the faith.
Jains mark Diwali as the day in 527 BC when Mahavira, the last of their great teachers, reached liberation.
Sweets, saris and fireworks
Families exchange boxes of MITHAI, Indian SWEETS made from milk, sugar, nuts and flour, and dress in new clothes, many women in a bright SARI with patterns of HENNA painted on their hands. Fireworks and CRACKERS light up the sky, although smoke from them adds to air pollution in cities such as Delhi, where their sale has sometimes been restricted.
Diwali is celebrated wherever Indian families have settled. Leicester, in the English Midlands, holds one of the biggest Diwali celebrations outside INDIA, with a LANTERN-lit street, a GARLAND of lights and tens of thousands of visitors. Every FESTIVE LAMP, CANDLE and SPARKLE carries the same meaning: light winning over darkness. Diwali is a public holiday in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Fiji and Trinidad and Tobago. In Nepal, where the festival is called Tihar, different days honour crows, cows and dogs, and on the dogs' day every dog, pet or stray, is given a garland of marigolds and a treat.