Wonderful facts about the Ugadi festival
All over the world, many religious and social festivals began as a celebration of the seasonal cycle. This is because the seasons are related to both agriculture and hunting, so they always affected human life. In India, we have many festivals with myths attached to them that mark spring as the beginning of life, since that is when plants blossom again. Today we will look at one such celebration called Ugadi.
What is Ugadi and where is it celebrated?
Ugadi is the Shaka calendar New Year festival celebrated in Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. In Maharashtra, people celebrate the same occasion as Gudi Padwa. This is the first day of the ‘Chaitra’ month. Both festivals mark the harvest of winter crops, planting of spring crops, and trees flowering again. In the English calendar, this day usually falls in April and this year, the date is the 2nd of this month.
What is the myth behind Ugadi?
The word Ugadi is made up of 2 Sanskrit words: ‘yug’ meaning ‘a period in time’ and ‘adi’ meaning ‘beginning or original’. Just like some states believe Basant Panchami to be the day when Brahma created the universe, these states take Ugadi to be the first day of the cosmos. Vishnu is also worshipped on the first day of Chaitra, since one of his names is Yugaadikrit, meaning ‘creator of the yugas’.
How do people celebrate Ugadi?
In Karnataka, Telengana and Andhra Pradesh, people shop heavily, visit temples and spend time with family. They also decorate their homes with rangoli and flowers, and wear new clothes. Mango and neem leaves are used to make gateway festoons or toranas. The ‘panchanga’ or Saka calendar based yearly forecast is published in local languages on that day.
Food is an important part of all festivals. On Ugadi, Puliogre, lemon rice and raw mango rice are prepared and eaten with the Ugadi Pachadi (chutney). This is a mix of jiggery, grated raw mangoes, salt, neem leaves and neem flowers in oil. The mix represents the flavours of life: jiggery is sweet but satisfying, neem is bitter but refreshing, tamarind is sour but adds flavour, and green mango is tangy and energising. The food is first offered to gods and then eaten as Prasad.