Vasu Baras and Dhan Teras

Diwali festive is a spark of sunshine in the moonlight. What each day of Diwali holds, that I'm gonna tell you in brief.

First Day of Diwali:

Vasu Baras (27 Ashvin or 12 Krishna Paksha Ashvin).

             Baras means the 12^th day and Vasu means cow.

On this day, I went to my nearby herd to worship the cow and the calf. In my childhood especially on this occasion I use to be at my granny’s place, she use to take me with her, telling along the way, why they worship cow and the calf. She told me, farmers worship them as they are their main source of income. And it is believed that cows are the incarnation of goddess Lakshmi and they are adorned and worshipped with veneration.

COW AND  CALF

Second Day of Diwali: 

Dhanatrayodashi or Dhan Teras or Dhanwantari Triodasi (28 Ashvin or 13 Krishna Paksha Ashvin).

               Dhan means wealth and Thrayodasi means 13^th day. 

Indra, the chief of the Deva’s (God of Heaven) was cursed by a rushi thereby made poor. He approached ‘Brahma’ who suggested him to obtain the ‘Nectar of Immortality’ (Amrutham) by churning the Ocean of milk (Ksheer sagara). ‘Ksheer’ means milk, and ‘Sagara’ means ocean. This extremely difficult task couldn’t be undertaken by the Deva’s alone so they took the help of ‘Asura’s’ (rakshas) also. The mountain ‘Mandhara’ was used as the pole and ‘Vasuki’, the chief of serpents was used as the rope. The mountain was supported by Lord Vishnu who took incarnation of ‘Kurma’ means Turtle. Kurma dived to the ocean core and balanced mountain Mandhara on his back.

CHURNING OF KSHEERA SAGA

Finally they began churning the ocean and a deadly poison known as ‘Halahala’ popped up. Lord Shiva drank the poison then Goddess Parvathi; his wife squeezed his neck to prevent it from going down. The poison settled at his neck coloring it blue. This gave Lord Shiva the name ‘Neelakanta’ meaning one with blue colored neck.

DHANWANTARI

Therafter so many precious objects emerged during churning. Finally ‘Dhanwantari’ appeared with the pot containing ‘Nectar of Immortality’. There began a dispute between the participating parties and finally Asura’s managed to get Amrutham from  the Deva’s but Lord Vishnu camouflaged as a beautiful lady, retrieved it from them and passed it to the Deva’s who attained immortality by drinking it. Asura’s left out.

VISHNU IN DISGUISE AS A LADY

This day is considered as ‘Dhanwantari Jayanthi’. It is also said Lord Vishnu’s unnoticeable energy flows through Sri Lakshmi Devi’s Surya nadi (right channel of the Kundalini) and the channel is activated. The rays generated from here are full of the ‘Tej Tatva’ or the fire element. These ‘Tej’ rays spread all over the universe and the world universe is illuminated by shiny golden particles.

This day is auspicious for buying silver utensils and gold. So I just rushed to my near by gold shop and got myself a pair of gold earrings. Wishing something good comes by.