Tradition · festival of lights
Diwali
Also known as Dīpāvalī, Deepavali, Deepawali, Dipavali, Divali, Dīpotsava, Dipamalika
The five- or six-day festival of lights, from Sanskrit dipavali, 'row of lamps', kept between mid-October and mid-November with lamps, rangoli, fireworks and Lakshmi puja. Its stories differ by faith and region: Rama's return to Ayodhya, Lakshmi and Ganesha, Kali in eastern India, Mahavira's final liberation for Jains, Guru Hargobind's release for Sikhs. It is attested in Harsha's seventh-century play Nagananda, in Rashtrakuta and later temple inscriptions, and in al-Biruni's eleventh-century account.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Mixed / layered
Worth knowing
On the eve of Diwali in October 2025 Ayodhya set the Guinness record for the largest display of oil lamps, 2,617,615 of them. Akbar joined in the festivities; Aurangzeb restricted them in 1665.
The festival probably combines older harvest festivals, and each founding story, Rama's return, Mahavira's nirvana in 527 BCE, Hargobind's release, is traditional. Scholars contest the 527 BCE date, and historians disagree over whether Aurangzeb banned the festival or only limited its public observance.
Connections (4)
- Traditional linkAyodhya
In the most widely told Hindu story Diwali marks the day Rama returned to his kingdom at Ayodhya with Sita and Lakshmana after defeating Ravana. The tie is narrative, but the city now enacts it on a vast scale: on the eve of Diwali in October 2025 a celebration at Ayodhya set the Guinness World Record for the largest display of oil lamps, with 2,617,615 lit. Other regions attach the festival instead to Krishna, Kali, Lakshmi or Yama.
- Traditional linkMahavira
Jains keep Diwali as Mahavira Nirvana Divas, the day of the final liberation of the twenty-fourth Tirthankara. Jain tradition holds that lamp-lighting began on the day of his nirvana in 527 BCE, when eighteen kings gathered for his last teachings proclaimed that lamps be lit in memory of the great light. Scholars contest that date, and some place Mahavira in the fifth century BCE beside the Buddha. A tenth-century Saundatti inscription records a gift of oil for Jain Diwali worship.
- Traditional linkGuru Hargobind
Sikhs keep Bandi Chhor Divas at Diwali for the release of the sixth Guru, Hargobind, from the Mughal prison at Gwalior Fort by Jahangir, and his arrival at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. J. S. Grewal argues that Sikh Diwali is older than the Hargobind story: the third Guru, Amar Das, already called Sikhs to bathe at the Goindwal step-well at Baisakhi and Diwali. The separate Sikh name was promoted in the early twentieth century in the wake of the Singh Sabha movement.
- Historical linkAl-Biruni
In his eleventh-century account of India al-Biruni recorded that Hindus celebrated Deepavali on the day of the new moon in the month of Kartika, among the festivals, fasts and pilgrimages his Kitab al-Hind describes in its closing chapters. He heads a line of foreign witnesses to the festival: Niccolò de' Conti in the early fifteenth century saw temples and roofs lit with countless oil lamps, and Domingo Paes in the sixteenth saw houses and temples illuminated at Vijayanagara in October.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Diwali". Om Lata Bahadur, "Diwali: The Festival of Lights", in J. S. Hawley & V. Narayanan (eds), The Life of Hinduism (2006); Audrey Truschke, Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King (2017).
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