Deepavali is a festival of truimph of good over evil and the word literally means “row of lights”. Though it started as a north-indian vaishnavaite festival it is now celebrated all over India. The legend of Deepavali goes back to times of yore. There was an evil demon called Narakasura who was terrorising the world. People prayed to Lord Krishna to save them and so Krishna came down and slew the demon after a terrible battle. In his last breath, the demon repented his evil deeds and begged Krishna that his death day be celebrated as a festival and that people should wear new clothes, eat sweets and burst fire crackers on that day. Krishna granted the demon his dying wish.

The battle between Krishna and Narakasura took place at night in the forest. After Krishna killed Narakasura, he smeared his forehead with the demon’s blood as a sign of victory and returned to the city at dawn. The women folk received him with joy and gave him a bath to wash the blood off after anointing his head with scented oils. In remembrance of this, on Deepavali, it is still a tradition among the people to wake up at dawn and take an oil bath, that is after applying oil on the head. And then of course the custom of wearing new clothes and gorging on delicious sweets and setting of a fantastic array of fireworks is practiced with great enthusiasm by one and all, especially the youngsters.

In Tiruvannamalai, at dawn, in the big temple of Lord Arunachaleswara, all the different deities in every nook and corner of the temple, are given an oil abhishekam and then adorned with new clothes. Otherwise deepavali does not have any special significance here except that the textile shops in town do a brisk trade and go about even a week prior to the festival, in autorickshaws with blaring loudspeakers advertising their wares.

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