The Worth Experiencing "Aashadi Utsav" at Gulbarga.
Note:here Lots of the words are from Marathi & Kannada, so it may be easily understood to only south indian peoples.
This "Utsav" starts on the "Dashmi" which is one day before Aashadi Ekadashi in Aashad month and it Ends on the Gopal kala which is after 6 days, that is on the 7th day.
on 6 th day the Main Utsav takes place, that day is known as " Pornima" and on that day the "Lord Vitthal" murti is placed in the "ratha" and it is taken to the maruti temple with singing abhang, haripath and using lots of mantras. in the maruti temple they do pooja, aarati and then again we come back to the "Lord Vitthal" Temple and again do the same that is they sing the abhangs, haripath, and do the aarati and then go for the Lunch, that is prasad. here for lunch we need to remove shirt, inner wears and wear the pancha(dhotar) and use uparni. After taking the lunch we come back to home. and then in the evening the gayan spardha, bhajan, kirtan, pravachan, etc. are taken place till mid night that is near about 12.10 am to 12.30 am.
same things are happened in first four days too, but the difference is that the ratha is used for rathasaptami and in those four days the "Vahana" is takes place with palaki and singing abhangs, haripath and go to the Maruti temple and do same pooja, aarati and come back to the Lord Vitthal temple, do again pooja, aarati and go for the Prasad as earlier i explained about prasad. and on ekadashi we eat only khees(Shabudana Khichadi).on dwadashi which immediately after ekadashi, we do the Usual Lunch at temple and everday in this utsav this is happened and at the time of vahana the use different different Lord Vishnu Avtars.
Most I liked in this Utsav is that the way the aarati, pooja and Vahana, ratha utsav on rathasaptami and the SEVA which we do at the temple. and the way we serve the prasad to the people and the method of serving and the Prasad items, etc...............
i had also done the seva, but i am not able to do so with an accuracy as well as optimistic approach with quick and fast actions. so i had done better as this is my second Utsav.
lot of the things are still there to write but its the brief story about Experiencing the Aashadi Utsav at Gulbarga.
This year(2008) it was taken place in between
13 th JULY to 19 th JULY 2008.
