Festival of Colors - Part 1 |Wild Eagles' Photography

Holi or Holika or Phagwah or Basant Utsav or Dol Jatra or Festival of Colors or Festival of Love

- There are so many names for just one festival that is celebrated widely all over India, different regions have different name.Yes today, on the auspicious occasion of Phalgun Purnima(full moon day in the month of Phalugn), we all Indians are celebrating Holi, which signifies the beginning of the season Spring, which is the most colorful festival mainly celebrated by the followers of Vedic Religion or Hindus. Historians also believe that Holi was celebrated by all Aryans but more so in the Eastern part of India.

But in recent times, it has also become popular among non-Hindus in many parts of South Asia, in some parts of Europe, North America as a spring celebration of love, frolic and colors.

The festival has many mythological interesting stories behind it. Let me tell you 3 of them:

1) Some people says it is highly associated with Hindu Gods Krishna and Radha. Hindus think of them as the God of Love, so the festival is also called as Festival of Love.

According to the legend, Krishna was jealous of Radha’s fair complexion. He told about this to his mother Yashoda, she teasingly asked him to color Radha’s face. So that's how it started.

2) Another legend says, it is associated with demon king Hiranyakashyap. Hiranyakashyap wanted everybody in his kingdom to worship only him, but to his great disappointment, his son, Prahlad became an ardent devotee of Lord Naarayana. Hiaranyakashyap commanded his sister, Holika to enter a blazing fire with Prahlad in her lap. Holika had a boon whereby she could enter fire without any damage on herself. However, she was not aware that the boon worked only when she enters the fire alone. As a result she paid a price for her sinister desires, while Prahlad was saved by the grace of the god for his extreme devotion. The festival, therefore, celebrates the victory of good over evil and also the triumph of devotion.

3) According to another legend, Lord Krishna killed the demonic ‘Putna’ on this day. And gowalas and gopiyas played Rasleela to celebrate it. Krishna played with colors to celebrate the victory of good over evil on this day.

The below picture gives you just a glance of how Holi is celebrated....