Kartik Purnima and Dev Deepawali in Kashi

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Namaste, and welcome. This is the first of five short episodes on Kartik Purnima and Dev Deepawali in Kashi. Over these episodes we will walk through the month of Kartik, the old story behind the full moon, the many ways India keeps this one night, and finally what it is like to be on the ghats of Kashi that evening. Let us begin with the city itself, and with the lamps.

In Kashi, the month of Kartik is a month of lamps. Through the month, at Panchganga Ghat and elsewhere along the ghats, the riverside steps of the city, families raise small lanterns on tall bamboo poles. The lantern sits in a little basket at the top of the pole, and it is lit each evening. These are called akash deep, sky lamps. They are raised in memory of the family's ancestors, so that, as people in Kashi say, those who came before us can see their way.

If you walk along the upper steps at dusk in this month, you may see these poles standing against the evening sky, each with its small light swaying a little in the wind from the river. It is a quiet sight. Nobody announces it. A family member climbs up, or lowers the basket on a rope, lights the lamp, and raises it again. Then the evening goes on.

And on the full moon at the end of the month, Kartik Purnima, the whole riverfront is lit. The people of Kashi call this evening Dev Deepawali, the Diwali of the gods. Diwali itself falls on the new moon about two weeks earlier. Dev Deepawali comes at the full moon after it, and in Kashi it is kept on the ghats and on the river.

We will not give a date in this episode, because the exact day and the timing of the full moon change every year and can differ by a few hours from place to place. Please check the exact date for your city in a panchang, the traditional Hindu almanac, or ask your family priest or local temple.

So what does the day remember? The Shiva Purana, in its Rudra Samhita, tells of Tripura. Tripura means three cities. The Purana describes three great flying cities, built for three asura brothers, which could be destroyed only when all three came into a single line. That moment was rare. Shiva, the Purana says, destroyed the three cities with a single arrow at that very moment, and so he is called Tripurari, the enemy of Tripura.

In many traditions this victory is remembered on Kartik Purnima, and that is why the day is also called Tripuri Purnima. The tradition in Kashi says that the gods came down to the ghats to celebrate, and lit lamps along the river. That is why the evening is the Diwali of the gods. We will tell the Tripura story more fully in the third episode of this series.

For many Vaishnava families, the whole month of Kartik is dear to Vishnu. The Kartika Mahatmya, a text on the greatness of the month which is found in the Padma Purana and also in the Skanda Purana, praises two practices above many others. The first is bathing early in the river, before sunrise, through the month. The second is offering lamps, which is called deepadana, the offering of lamps.

So in many homes, Kartik is kept with early baths and with lamps. A lamp is lit near the Tulsi plant in the courtyard, a lamp at the household shrine, a lamp at the door. Kartik Purnima closes that month of early baths and lamps. The Shaiva story of Tripurari and the Vaishnava practice of the month meet on the same full moon, and in Kashi, a city of Shiva, both are kept side by side without any sense of contradiction.

The same full moon is also sacred to others, in their own ways. It is Guru Nanak Dev ji's Prakash Purab for Sikhs across the world, a day the Sikh community keeps with its own prayers, hymns and community kitchens. For Jains, it is the day of a great pilgrimage to Shatrunjaya at Palitana, after the monsoon retreat ends and monks and nuns may travel again. These are their own observances, with their own meanings. It is simply a day on which many of India's faiths keep a light burning. We will speak about this more in the fourth episode.

Now let us come to Dev Deepawali in Kashi itself.

On the evening of Kartik Purnima, earthen lamps are placed along the steps of the ghats, from Assi Ghat in the south to Raj Ghat in the north. There are hundreds of thousands of them. Volunteers, families, local committees and temple trusts spend the afternoon setting out the small clay lamps in rows along the steps, filling them with oil or ghee, and laying the wicks. As dusk comes, they are lit, one by one and then all at once, until the curve of the river is outlined in light.

At Dashashwamedh Ghat and at other ghats, the evening Ganga aarti is performed on a large scale that night. People watch from the steps and from boats on the river. From the water, the whole crescent of the city seems to shine, and the lamps are reflected in the Ganga below them.

Early that same morning, many people will already have bathed in the Ganga, as the Kartik tradition asks. So the day in Kashi begins with water and ends with fire, with the river at the centre of both.

In between, the day is an ordinary working day for much of the city. Shops open, boats carry people across the river, and the cremation ghats at Manikarnika and Harishchandra continue their work as they do every day and every night. Families visit temples, some keep a fast until evening, and many give something in charity, food or cloth or lamps, because giving on this full moon is praised in the tradition. Customs differ from family to family, and there is no single correct way to keep the day.

As the afternoon turns to evening, the mood on the ghats changes. People begin to gather on the steps. Children help to set out lamps. Someone draws a rangoli, a pattern in coloured powder, on a landing between flights of steps. Flowers arrive in baskets. By the time the sun goes down behind the city, the river is full of boats and the steps are full of people, all waiting for the first lamps to be lit.

It is worth saying clearly that the large public Dev Deepawali, with lamps along the whole riverfront, is a fairly recent growth of an old custom. People in Kashi remember it spreading from Panchganga Ghat in the 1980s, when local residents began to light the ghats together. Over the years, more ghats joined in, and it grew into what we see now.

The lamps at Panchganga itself are much older. The akash deep of the month of Kartik, and the lamps of the full moon, have been lit there for a long time. So what people see today is an old practice that the city has taken up together, ghat by ghat.

If you plan to go, a few gentle suggestions. Arrive early, as the ghats get very crowded, and the lanes leading to them fill up well before dusk. If you take a boat, use a registered boatman and wear the life jacket you are given. And please keep the lamps and the river clean. Kashi's own people will thank you for it. Our fifth episode is a fuller guide to being there that evening, and we hope it will help.

If you cannot be in Kashi, that is fine too. Most people who keep Kartik Purnima keep it at home, at a local temple, or at a nearby river or pond. The lamp matters more than the place.

Let us gather what we have heard. Kartik Purnima ends the month of lamps. The Shiva Purana tells of Shiva as Tripurari, the one who destroyed the three cities, and the Kashi tradition says the gods came down to celebrate, which is why the evening is called Dev Deepawali. The Kartika Mahatmya praises lamps and early baths through the whole month. And Sikhs and Jains keep the same full moon with light too, each in their own way.

One thing to take with you. On the evening of Kartik Purnima, wherever you are, light one lamp at dusk. As you light it, think of one person in your family who came before you, and say their name.

In the next episode, we will stay with the month of Kartik itself, and look at how households keep it, with early baths, lamps and the Tulsi plant.

Keep going

• Listen: Kartik Purnima and Dev Deepawali in Kashi
• Next: The Month of Kartik: Early Baths, Lamps and Tulsi
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