The Month long Festival Of Rangolis
The month of Dhanurmaasam starts from 15th of December. Dhanu in Sanskrit literally means The Bow and also the Zodiac sign Sagittarius. Maasam means mont. The Sun enters each Sun Sign and stays there for a month.The event of Sun entering each Sun Sign is known as Sankarmana or Sankranti and is considered auspicious for offering prayers, special ceremonies, meditation, and giving of money, land, gold or such things as religious act in Hinduism.
On 15th of this month Sun is going to enter the Sun Sign Sagittarius and that is why it is known as Danur Masam or the month during which Sun transits in Sagittarius. This usually falls on 14th or 15 th December every year but may sometimes fall on 13th to 16th too. This period is considered very auspicious for worshipping Lord Vishnu.
It is believed that during this period, Lord Vishnu visits earth before Sun Rise or early in the morning. So to please him, we clean our front yards, coat the yard with cow dung and draw and decorate with beautiful designs known as Rangolis or Muggu or Kolam or Alpana, as big or as many as we can with rice flour or a powder of lime stone. These designs look so white and beautiful against the dark green of the cow dung. There are some specific designs of Rangolis for this month.
It is believed that The Lord will visit those who keep their house, clean and beautiful. We also take bath in Brahma Muhurtham-that is around 3.30 to 4 am and worship Lord Vishnu before Sun rises.
You know while drawing these designs we keep chanting Lords name or sing devotional songs. It is real fun because this is winter time. Its difficult to get up early and draw these designs in the chilly weather. Those with huge yards in the front draw very big designs. I remember my gran's place. It had huge yard. Our maids used to clean them and apply a coat of cow dung. When it dries completely, my mom and my aunts used to draw huge designs. This continues for the whole month.
Every lady or young girls used to and still do especially in villages and small towns and to some extent in cities, draw these designs before their houses. Its a real competition between the ladies or girls of that lane as to who draws the biggest, neatest and new creative designs everyday. Not only that, expertise of any woman is also judged by the thinnest line drawn for Rangolis. LOL! You know for that reason ladies collect these designs, create on their own to excel.
In olden days, there were no TVs or any other media except for print media. Magazines were also very few especially for women. But boy magazines and news papers used to print many designs of Rangolis. They would invite women to contribute good designs. There would be prizes too for the best ones. This trend continues even today.
These designs would be religiously copied onto papers or note books and practised well. My gran, my mom and my aunts have so many books filed with many such designs which I am tapping now.
To be continued......
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