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This is one of unique and
important festival in the Sindhi festival calendar. The
festival is dedicated to Goddess Mahalaxmi, the Goddess of
wealth and being celebrated during the "Shiradhs" - a time
period of two weeks dedicated for paying homage to
forefathers. Celebration of festival starts with tiding "Sagaro"
a thread belt complied from raw thread with sixteen knots,
on wrist. On the eighth shiradh sagaro is untied.
To mark the end of festival a special worship prayer of
Goddess Mahalaxmi is conducted in near by temple where all
the ladies are gathered with sagara of all the family
members. Each Sagaro is rolled over the set of four "Puris"
and for each sagara set of two each Sori [sixteen pointed
Tiki] and Titar [with four points] are made and after the
worship are to be eaten by the family member concerned.
For this festival Tikyoon, Lola and Satpuda are prepared
in Sindhi homes. Satpuda socked in sweet milk is one of
tasty sindhi food. |
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 Nagpanchami
[Gogio] is yet another festival of scared month Shrivan [Savan].
This is a festival which is not limited to just Sindhi
Community but is celebrated through out the India by all
Hindus so this is a Hindu festival. Anant, Vasuki, Shesh,
Padma, Kanwal, Karkotak, Kalia, Aswatar, Takshak, Sankhpal,
Dhritarashtra and Pingal etc are the some of names of Naga
kings mentioned in Hindu Puranas and in fact in the
ancient time there was a human clan called Naga living on
the earth. Lord Vishnu's couch, thousand headed "Sheshnag"
also belongs to Nags.
Nagpanchami is celebrated on the fifth day of bright
fortnight in the month of Savan. Traditionally on this day
worship of snakes is performed. Battis Shirala - a near by
village to Kolhapur [Click here to learn more about city]
is world famous for Nagpanchami celebration. Where almost
one week ahead of festival local people start collecting
Cobra and poisonous snakes, keep them in earthen pots [Matka
or Handi] and on the day of festival these pots are taken
to temple of Goddess Amba in procession. This is amazing
fact that though the poisonous fangs are not removed but
still on this day no body dies of bite of these venomous
cobras. Some of the other Indian temples famous for
Nagpanchami are
Adiesha Temple in Andhra Pradesh - Nagaraja Temple in
Kerala - Nagathamman Temple in Chennai and Hardevja Temple
in Jaipur.
In the sindhi families celebrations of Gogio have quite
resemblance with Thadadi on this day, people eat food
cooked on the previous day. |