Karaga Festival in Bangalore

Information about karaga festival

Karga Festival is One of the oldest and most important festival of Karnataka.The festival is coming in month of March -April of year. The celebration lasts for around 9 days starting from a full moon day.It is celebrated 15 days after Ugadi.In this year 2016 Karaga Festival will celabraete.Karaga is the name given to an earthen pot, which symbolizes Shakti. Devotees place a karaga on their heads and join in the procession taken out at night. The procession comes to an end at the Sampangi tank, where all the pots are immersed in water.The festival derives its name from an earthen pot in which the Goddess Shakti is invoked. Started by a Tamil-speaking community of gardeners called Thigalars, the Karaga festival is a fiesta of spectacular rituals and processions. Just after dusk on the Karaga day, a priest of the Dharmaraya temple sets out from the temple precariously balancing an earthen pot bedecked with flowers.Karaga is celebrated as women power and the carrier of karaga dresses up as a female and it is taken as a symbolization of Draupadi. The Karaga starts from the Dharmaraya Swamy Temple and devotees follow through the night offering prayers. Also, people sing devotional songs and mantras waiting in the temple for the return of the Karaga.The Karaga Festival starts with hoisting of a yellow flag inside the temple on a bamboo pole on the night of Saptami.After Aarathi Utsava – This takes place on the 6th day of the festival and is called the festival of lights. and last 10 th day is Karaga Shakthyotsava celebrate.In this event the goddess and the murtis are taken from Shakthipeeta to temple and prayers are offered by the karthas. 

Karaga festival Celebration in Bangalore

The Bangalore citi People Celebrate all festival with full of enjoy.The Bengalorians celebrate kangra about March-April month.This Year Karaga festival celebrated will 21 April-to 30 April in Bangalore.They Celebrate this festival about 11 days .Karaga festival depicts the rich cultural and religious heritage of bangalore. It is celebrated in honour of the Goddess Shakti.araga is one of the oldest as well as most popular traditional festivals celebrated in Bangalore city. Karaga is celebrated on the full moon day of the first month of the Lunar Hindu calendar (Chaitra masa). Karaga refers to a sacred floral pot carried by a man resplendently dressed as a woman. This year the Karaga will be carried by H.C. Lokesh for the fourth time.The 11-day festival starts with the flag hoisting on the night of April 16, with several rituals being performed each day thereafter. The main Karaga festival, which was scheduled for April 25, has been advanced by a day due to the lunar eclipse.

Traditionally, the festivities begin with the recitation of mantras (incantations) and the hoisting of a ceremonial flag on the banks of Bangalore’s Sampangi tank. On her seventh day the Hasi-Karaga (tender Karaga) is brought from a salt water pond near the Dharmaraya Temple. Legend has it that the Karaga carrier while in deep meditation in the waist deep water in the pond suddenly feels a weight on his head. Holding the object like he would have a baby, he goes to the Sampangi tank. Then the object is brought back to the Dharmarya Temple and placed next to the Dharmarya Temple and placed next to the idol of Dharma. At this point it becomes the Karaga.
The festival of the Karaga is awaited by hundreds of bare chested, dhoti-clad and turbaned veerakumaras (brave youth) brandishing named swords. Only a member of the Tigala community can be a veerakumara. Fire-walking, these young men dance around while striking their blades against their bare chests. If blood should ooze out, it is considered an indication of the veerakumara’s failure to adhere to the ritualistic formalities required for the occasion. Amidst fire walking and frenzied dancing, the Karaga carrier emerges from the temple, surrounded by the these men the Karaga balanced on his head. For the Karaga carrier, the swords have a menacing significance because by tradition they are supposed to stab the Karanga carrier if he loses balance and falls. Fortunately, this has never happened in the long history of this festival.

 

Karaga Festival Route in Bangalore

The Karaga leaves the temple located on OTC Road and goes around Cubbonpet, Ganigarapet, Doddapete, Avenue Road, Akkipet, Aralepet, Balepet, Kilari Road, Kumbarpet and Nagarathpet, before reaching the Dharmarayaswamy temple on the morning of April 25. The festival will conclude on after the Vasantotsava. 

 

 Picture of  Karaga Festival  Bangalore

The goddess and the murtis are taken from Shakthipeeta to temple and prayers are offered by the karthas. - See more at: http://www.trip2blr.com/events-and-festivals/karaga-festival/#sthash.lNYvdHBY.dpuf

Karaga Shakthyotsava