{"id":3590,"date":"2024-10-29T10:08:35","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T10:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/?p=3590"},"modified":"2024-07-10T10:31:42","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T09:31:42","slug":"diwali-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/2024\/10\/29\/diwali-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Diwali"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3592\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2024\/07\/diya_full_width-300x214.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2024\/07\/diya_full_width-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2024\/07\/diya_full_width.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Diwali\u00a0(also called\u00a0Divali\u00a0or\u00a0Deepavali) [29\/10-4\/11] is a \u2018festival of lights\u2019 that celebrates the triumph of light over dark, good over evil and the blessings of victory, freedom and enlightenment. The name comes from Sanksrit\u00a0dipavali, meaning &#8216;row of lights&#8217;. On the night of Diwali, celebrants light dozens of candles and clay lamps (called diyas), placing them throughout their homes and in the streets to light up the\u00a0night.<\/p>\n<p>Diwali consists of a five-day celebration celebrating the goddess of wealth and prosperity, Lakshmi, that peaks on the third day with the main celebration of Diwali.<\/p>\n<p>The five days of Diwali are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dhanteras<\/li>\n<li>Chhoti Diwali (Narak Chaturdashi)<\/li>\n<li>Diwali (Laxmi Puja)<\/li>\n<li>Goverdhan Puja<\/li>\n<li>Bhai Dooj<br \/>\nFollowers of the Hindu, Sikh, and Jain faiths primarily celebrate Diwali. However, the holiday is celebrated throughout India, Singapore and several other South Asian countries as a national holiday.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3591 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2024\/07\/rangoli-300x214.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2024\/07\/rangoli-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2024\/07\/rangoli.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Families create intricate\u00a0<em>rangoli <\/em>on the floor of the\u00a0house \u2014 designs made of coloured rice, sand, or flowers.<\/p>\n<p>The main celebration of Diwali takes place on the day of the new Moon when the sky is at its darkest, so a big part of the celebration revolves around light. Candles, clay lamps, and diyas (decorative oil lamps) are lit and placed throughout the home, in the streets, in areas of worship and floated on lakes and rivers. Fireworks are also set off on the night of Diwali \u2014 said by some to ward off evil spirits.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3593 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2024\/07\/diwali-snack-1-coconut-ladoos-300x195.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"195\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2024\/07\/diwali-snack-1-coconut-ladoos-300x195.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2024\/07\/diwali-snack-1-coconut-ladoos.jpg 650w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Another central theme of Diwali is family. Wearing their best new clothes, families gather together to eat sweets and other special foods, light\u00a0diyas and pray for their ancestors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Diwali\u00a0(also called\u00a0Divali\u00a0or\u00a0Deepavali) [29\/10-4\/11] is a \u2018festival of lights\u2019 that celebrates the triumph of light over dark, good over evil and the blessings of victory, freedom and enlightenment. The name comes from Sanksrit\u00a0dipavali, meaning &#8216;row of lights&#8217;. On the night of Diwali, celebrants light dozens of candles and clay lamps (called diyas), placing them throughout their &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/2024\/10\/29\/diwali-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Diwali&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":572,"featured_media":3594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-annual-celebration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3590"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3598,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3590\/revisions\/3598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}