Ramnavami Celebrations 2012

Come the month of March and April and the Hindus in India get ready to celebrate the festival of Ramnavami which is a very important Indian festival and is celebrated across the Indian subcontinent.

This year too in 2012, the festival of Ramnavami would be once again celebrated with a lot of fervour and enthusiasm. This is the festival that is celebrated as the birthday of Lord Ram and is one of the most eagerly awaited festivals amongst the Hindus. Lord Ram is one of the famous Hindu deities and is believed to be the seventh incarnation of Lord Vishnu in his Dashavatara forms. Lord Rama was born to Queen Kausalya and King Dasarath and this birth day is revered as Ram Navami and there are lot of celebrations on this occasion. Ram Navami falls on the Chaitra month of the Hindu calendar.

The festivities go on for nine days and there are lot of prayers and fasting by the devotees on this day. With the public gatherings called satsang and the pujas the entire period of Ramnavami is celebrated with reverence to the Lord and is a great way of enjoying this beautiful day.

A major Indian festival Ramnavami is celebrated with a lot of pomp. The people belonging to the dynasty of Ram are believed to have descended from the Sun. The celebrations therefore begin very early in the morning by praying to Surya the Sun God. In the afternoon, there are special prayers in the temple and the exact time of birth of Lord Ram is looked upon with a lot of love and respect.

It is considered very auspicious to undertake a fast on this day and the very religious fast for the entire nine days of Rama Navami. This is a fast that is kept to seek the blessings of Lord Rama and pray to be a perfect human being like him. So all temples perform a lot of prayers the entire day. There is a very important practice to read the Ramayana by a priest in the temple for all the nine days and this is a total crowd puller and all the devotees come and listen to the fascinating stories of Lord Rama on this day.

The festival of Ram Navami is celebrated all over India and internationally too. In India the festival is celebrated grandly in the cities of Ayodhya and Pondicherry. These are cities that were very famous for the celebrations of Ram Navami. These places are very vividly mentioned in the Indian Epic Ramayana.

Ayodhya is the place where Lord Rama took birth and the festival thus has a lot of decorations and grandeur. So rath Yatras are taken out and the chariots look resplendent in their decorations. The lavish decorations along with the disguises of the people who dress up as Lord Rama, Goddess Sita, Laxman and Hanuman are very interesting and enchanting. There is another chariot that is followed by many people who are dressed up as the soldiers of Lord Rama. The rath Yatras take place across Northern India and continue for more than two days. They are accompanied with a lot of pomp and show and rejoicement too. The participants are seen singing a lot of religious songs in praise of the Lord and also praise the way Lord Rama ruled over the kingdom.

Cities like Rameshwaram and Ujjain also have a lot of devotees who come and attend this festival with a lot of gusto. People come here to Rameshwaram and take a bath in the sea before they pay homage at the Ramanathaswamy temple.

Innumerable fairs are held in various places in North India and there are firework displays in celebration of the birth of their favourite Lord.

So this festival of Rama Navami or Sri Rama Navami is a festival which is very revered by all the Hindus. It also celebrates the marriage of Lord Rama to Goddess Sita. Rama was married to Sita on Vivaha Panchami and so this occasion is also celebrated as Sita Kalyanam on this day. The entire Indian subcontinent gets abuzz with celebrations and the nine days of the Navaratras is called the Sri Ramnavami navratra. The Ramcharitmanas is read out, there is an Akhand Paath, and then there are lot of kirtans and bhajans along with a lot of Vedic chanting.

So get prepared to see elegantly decorated temples and sacred havan experiences besides of course the beauty of feeling the blessings of the lord. So with the fanciful Shobha Yatras and the decorative chariots forming the mainstay of the function, it is not a feat that one would want to miss in this land of temples and culture India.

With so much to do and so many things to celebrate the festival of Ram Navami is sure to bring back the emotions of love, respect and warmth amongst all. There are places where a mixture of cardamom and jaggery is prepared and given as a token of respect for the Lord. There are also items made out of milk, sugar and rice and the pal paysam somehow is very synonymous as preparations for Ram Navami.

Ram Navami is one of those festivals which feature a lot of the culture that India has and the tradition that the country follows.