Durga Puja

Durga Puja is an annual Hindu festival honoring the goddess Durga, especially prominent in Bengal. It combines devotional worship with temporary images, public celebrations, and community gatherings.

Kumartuli: A Kolkata neighborhood known for workshops that make clay images of Hindu deities. Its sculptors create many of the temporary Durga images displayed across Kolkata.
Bodhan: A ritual awakening of the goddess Durga, traditionally performed at the beginning of her autumn worship. It marks the formal opening of Durga’s worship during the festival.
Durga: A Hindu goddess associated with protection and the defeat of forces threatening cosmic order. The festival centers on her worship and celebrates her victory over Mahishasura.
Dhak: A large, barrel-shaped drum used in Bengali religious and festive music. Its rhythms provide a characteristic sound of Durga Puja processions and worship.
Pandals: Temporary, often elaborately designed structures erected for religious or public gatherings in South Asia. Durga Puja pandals turn neighborhoods into temporary sites of worship and exhibition.
Bengal: A historical and cultural region of South Asia, now divided between Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. The festival’s most prominent regional traditions developed across Bengal.
Kola Bou: A banana plant dressed as a bride and ritually bathed during Durga Puja in Bengal. Its ceremonial bathing forms part of the festival’s early morning rites.
Mahishasura: A buffalo-associated asura defeated by the goddess Durga in Hindu mythology. His defeat is the central mythic victory celebrated in Durga Puja.
Dhuno naach: A Bengali devotional dance performed while holding smoking incense burners, often during Durga Puja. It makes incense, movement, and devotion part of the festival’s public spectacle.
Community Durga Puja: A publicly organized Durga Puja funded and run by a neighborhood or civic association. Community committees organize many of the festival’s public installations and events.

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