India is a country that loves to celebrate and there are some festivities that stem from religious beliefs and customs – there are plenty of situations where the decorative pooja thali has to be taken out and the lights need to be hung up and sweets need to be prepared. Navaratri has to be one of those festivals, when you are getting ready for the pooja and decorating your home, but also getting ready to indulge in some Navratri shopping.
The nine days of Navaratri are important on several levels – one, this is a celebration that takes place in almost every part of the country and while the method and style of celebrating it might vary a little from each state to the other, the sense of devotion and joy does not. There are actually specific reasons why the festival is celebrated for nine days and each day has a specific purpose and a particular style of celebration.
In this blog, we are going to look at what makes Navratri puja special in the north and western parts of India and how the festivities and Durga puja shopping vary from other parts of the country.
Navratri And Durga Puja Vidhis
Navratri, technically comes four times in a year, however, it is the Sharada Navratri and the Chaitra Navratri that are considered the most important. While the former comes during the autumn equinox time period, the latter comes towards the spring time. The Sharad or Sharada Navratri is considered the most important, because it is believed that this is an astrologically powerful time. It is also believed that Ma Shakti, who drives the natural order of things is in the most woken of states, which is why, she needs to be worshipped with certain rituals. By appeasing Durga maa, you will have blessing from her other forms, which include Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom.

Navratri preparations and celebrations:

Before you can start the process of the pooja, you need to make sure that you get all the Navratri pooja samagri ready first – the first thing that you will want to buy is a Goddess Durga idol or a Mata Rani statue. You can also choose to pick a photo or painting of the goddess, in case you don’t want to buy an idol. next, you will need red coloured clothes (dupatta or saree), items of shringar (sindoor, bangles, bracelets, comb and mirror), you will also need fresh flowers and leaves, ideally red flowers. Other ingredients that you will need for the pooja are saffron, sandalwood, turmeric, rice, cardamom and cloves, honey, sugar and coconut. Finally, the list of ingredients and materials that are almost constant for all kinds of pooja – a kalash filled with water, mauli, betel leaves and nuts lotus seeds, brass diyas, oil, cotton wicks, dhoop, agarbatti, asana and fresh fruits and sweets.
Before any of the preparations, you need to ensure that the whole house has been cleaned out and then you need to get the Navratri puja kalash ready.
  • You can either place a combination of seven different grains or any one inside the kalash and you need to add some clean soil to the kalash as well. This step is called the Ghatasthapana and needs to be done at an auspicious time.
  • The kalash can be made of clay or copper, depending on what is available at hand and place it near the chowki on which the photo or idol of Durga is kept.
  • To the kalash, you will next add, Gangajal, sandalwood, turmeric, rice, betel nuts, durva grass, leaves that have not been cut and a few flowers.
  • Finally, you can place a coconut on top of the kalash and in case you don’t have a coconut, you can garland the kalash.
  • Light a diya and do the pooja with five things – diya, dhoop, flowers, agarbatti and sweets/fruits, all the things that you would have with your Navratri samagri.
  • You can either place a red dupatta or red cloth on top of the idol or place it under the photo of Durga and pray to her for good health and fortune.
  • Aarti needs to be performed every day and every day, you need to offer some water to the kalash. You can either recite the chants or play a tape during the aarti time.
  • On Ashtami or the 8th day (some people prefer to do it on the Navami or 9th day), girls who are yet to start their menstrual cycle are invited home as goddesses. Their feet have to be washed and they have to be fed good food and then given money and gifts, in exchange of their blessings. This ritual is known as Kanya pooja or kanchak.
  • On the very last day, the kalash has to be given a send-off or a visarjan, into a water body, but only after a pooja has been done and thanks have been offered to Durga ma.

Durga Pooja celebrations – what all you need and have to do:

In the Bengali culture, the 9 days of Navratri are the time for absolute celebration – while there is prayer and penance, there is also immense festivity. For the Bengali people, a Goddess Durga Mata wall hanging is a fixture, it’s something that you will find in every home where a Bengali resides. You will see either a photo, a painting, a mask or a Durga statue in a location of obvious attention. In West Bengal and the areas surrounding it, such as Bihar, Jharkhand and Assam, the nine days dedicated to the nine versions of Durga are days of celebration and rejoicing.
Like is the case with Ganpati, a Durga maa clay idol will be placed on the first day of the festivities and through the nine days, special prayers and programs will be offered. On the final day, there is visarjan, wherein the idol is submerged in water, with a prayer that she returns the next year, bringing the same amount of joy and festivities. Unlike the north Indian version of Navaratri, where individual homes will have a kalash and pooja, Durga Pooja is more of a community celebration – large pandals are setup all over the state, where you will get to see large idols of Durga. The visarjan of the idols are just as elaborate and festive as Ganpati visarjan – there is music, dancing and much joy!
  • However, there are some poojas that are done at home and the major ones happen one week before Mahalaya or the navratris, when the Durga ma is requested to come down to Earth, to be amongst the people who love and worship her.
  • After the installation of the idol, on Saptami, there is a ritual called as the Pran Pratisthan – a small banana plant is bathed and dressed up to the nines, and this plant is meant to absorb all the energies and divinity that the goddess embodies.
  • The next day, that is Ashtami, the same plant is worshipped in the form of a virgin or Kumari, to maintain the purity of the female form and energy.
  • On the ninth day, there is a Maha Arti and on the final day, Dashami, the goddess is returned to her husband’s home, by way of immersion. On this day, women dress up in the traditional white and red saree and smear sindoor on each other, as a symbol of marital bliss and fertility.
In case you are planning to do pooja at home, you will need more than just a Durga maa idol for home – you will need a kalash, hibiscus flowers, rice, milk, curd, ghee, sugar, honey, panchamrit, fruits and sweets to name a few. Once all these ingredients are ready, there are almost 16 steps:
  • The process begins with invoking the goddess and meditating on her energies, followed by offering her pushapanjali or offering of flowers.
  • Water is offered to wash her feet and then scented water as well as water that she could drink is offered. Water as an offering to bath her comes next and then she is offered new clothes and jewellery.
  • Next offerings include sandalwood, kumkum and kajal, followed by saubhagya sutra, scent, turmeric and akshata. These are followed by offerings of flowers, Bilvapatra, dhoop, light of the lamp, naivedya and rituphala (fruits of the season). Final offerings include coconut and betel leaves with betel nuts. Finally, dakshina (this could be in the form of money or gifts) is offered to the goddess. A lot of people choose home decor items as dakshina, because these can be used later on.
  • On days that follow, there are specific poojas for books (Saraswati pooja), lamp (deep poojan) and young girls (kanya pooja).
  • On the final days, there are salutations to the goddess and asking for forgiveness.
Whether you choose to have an elaborate pooja with all the havan samagri for Navratri or you like to keep it simple and small scale, there are actually benefits of doing the poojas at home. Not only do they fill the home with positivity, the usage of incense and other similar ingredients can help purify the air. By doing the pooja, you are inviting good health, wealth and prosperity into your home.

Start this year’s Navratri shopping at eCraftIndia, where you can find everything from goddess idols to wall hangings of religious figures. You can also shop for diyas, urlis and other things that you might need for your celebrations.