Hindus celebrate the festival of Deepawali around the months of October and November but those who live in Varanasi are a tab bit luckier. For they also celebrate Dev Deepawali, literally the Deepawali of the gods, for it is believed that is the day when gods descend upon the holy city that is their abode too.
In cities and towns, the celebrations of the festival of lights are rather materialistic. Fireworks are lit up and countless gifts are exchanged between family and friends. However, in Varanasi, Deepawali is celebrated in an old-school way, especially when its Dev Deepawali. Locals who live on the ghats deck the entire breadth of 90 odd ghats with earthen lamps on the steps of the ghats. The earthen lamps, or diyas in Hindi, are the true symbol of the festival of light.
But the magnificence of this sight comes alive at night. In the morning, however, the ghats and the banks of Ganges are full of bathing devotees. The day is known as the day of Kartik Purnima, which is believed to be an especially holy day for it is the beginning of a new year as per the Hindu calendar.
Another special feature of the ghats is the Ganga Aarti, or the prayer to the Ganges, that takes place in the evening at the main ghat, Dashashwamedh Ghat. While the spectacle is quite something to watch on an ordinary day, it is even more exquisite on the day of Dev Deepawali when millions of little diyas add to the magic of the moment.
BTW, as I see that you love to take, and to post, photos, I want to inform you that we don’t have unlimited space. In Connect we have a limit of 1000 uploaded photos per user.
In there you will find some useful tips to save your space, like uploading collages, linking albums from Google Photo, or embedding your photos stored on another location. Also please keep in mind that a post with a lot of photos can take a lot of time to load if a user have a low connection.
Hope this will help you to contribute for a long time in connect with more beautiful photos
Excellent pics @ferozeea & interesting information about Dev-Deepavali.
Do the people at Varanasi celebrate that in Shravan? Else, the usual occasion is the first week of Margsheersh.
Nevertheless, your pics contain photos of many strangers. Trust, you have sought permission from them to post those on social media. Else, as per the privacy policy of Maps, one should refrain posting images of strangers without their consent & in my opinion, the same applies to Connect also.
