Ganesh Chaturthi

Ganesh Chaturthi

Ganesh Chaturthi, also known as Vinayaka Chaturthi (Vināyaka Chaturthī), is the Hindu festival that reveres Lord Ganesha. A ten-day festival, it starts on the fourth day of Hindu lunar-solar calendar month Bhadrapada, which typically falls in Gregorian months of August or September.

The festival is marked with the worship of Lord Ganesha idols privately in homes, or publicly on elaborate pandals (temporary stage). Observations include chanting of Vedic hymns and Hindu texts such as Ganapati Upanishad, prayers and vrata (fasting). Offerings and prasad from the daily prayers, that is distributed from the pandal to the community, including sweets such as modaka believed to be a favourite of the elephant-headed deity.

The festival ends on the tenth day after start, wherein the idol is carried in a public procession with music and group chanting, then immersed in a nearby water body such as a river or ocean, thereafter the clay idol dissolves and Lord Ganesha is believed to return to Mount Kailash to Parvati and Shiva.