Durga Puja; Bringing Americans Together in times of Conflict By Maggie Quinn, Chad Polevoy Dr.

Nathaniel Intercultural Communication

In our search for a cultural practice thats adoption in the United States would be beneficial to society we came across a Hindi festival, the Durga Puja. Hindis celebrate this festival around the globe. During this time, Hindi people come together to worship the Goddess Durga. Durga is the goddess of protection. She unifies, sends cosmic energy, and offers the Hindi people protection from mental, physical, and spiritual illness (Rajhans, 2010). We believe honoring these values would benefit American society in many ways. America is divided on about every issue that we face including cultural, domestic, and foreign affairs. We believe that adopting the Durga Puja festival in America could help in bringing people together and giving people a feeling of protection in less than safe times. The Durga Puja festival occurs twice a year, once during the Hindu month of Ashwin (September-October on our calendar) and once during the month of Chiatra (April-May). It is celebrated at the same times but in different ways throughout the world. There are many different sects of Hinduism, like any other religion, and the different sects all have different specificities pertaining to the festival and use different words to describe ultimately the same thing. However, the main point of the festival and the divine power of Durga that is being worshiped are consistent throughout all sects of Hinduism. There are many stories behind the festivals origin but the one we found the most prominent was the tale of a battle between Durga and Mahishasura, the buffalo demon (Ghosh, 2000).

This demons goal was to defeat the Gods and their divine army to assume world domination. In their desperate time of need, the Gods left heaven and went to Brahma. Brahma then created Durga, a warrior woman with divine powers. Each of the Gods in turn made a duplicate of their weapon of choice and put it in Durgas hands. Before taking on the beast, Durga destroyed his entire army. When she finally charged on Mahishasura, he changed form from a buffalo into a lion. Durga decapitated the lion but soon found that defeating the beast was not so simple, for he was a form changer. Form after form came and went with Durgas attacks until finally he changed back into a buffalo and went on to trample everything in its path. The beast thought he could take advantage of Durga during her drink break and threw mountains, rocks, and boulders at her. She destroyed each of them and dealt the buffalo demon its last blow by cutting off his head (Ghosh, 2000). The items that Durga holds are symbolic and represent what she stands for. During our research we found that depending on the sect of Hinduism she has from eight to eighteen arms holding different objects. We will talk about the most common items we found her holding: A trident, with its three prongs representing removing physical, spiritual, and mental miseries. She also always holds a sword representing knowledge with the sharpness of the sword. She holds a chakra that floats in balance around one of her fingers. This represents her command over the earth and stars and how she uses her power to promote growth and righteousness. Righteousness is acting in accordance with the divine moral law. The fourth item she holds is a lotus flower that is not fully

bloomed. This represents a certainty of success but not finality, the continuous evolution of spiritual quality in Hindus everywhere among a world filled with distractions like lust and greed. She holds a thunderbolt that signifies her firmness and ability to attack any challenge without losing confidence. Her bow and arrow signifies energy that she controls. She is said to control both aspects of energy, kinetic and potential. The conch shell represents her connection to Deva (Brahma, her creator) in the form of sound. She also commonly held a mace, which is a weapon of war. Lastly, she is most always shown sitting on a lion, symbolizing her power, will, and determination (Rajhans, 2010). After reading background information on the festival on many different sites, the inconsistency of the stories and language used to describe it confused us. This influenced us to contact the Hindu Center of Charlotte and schedule a time to go in and talk with members about what the festival meant to them. We asked them a series of questions about how they celebrated the festival, why they celebrated the festival, and what the Goddess Durga meant to them. When we walked up to the front door of the center there was a sign asking us to remove our shoes. This showed us the immense amount of respect that Hindis hold for the divine. The center was quiet with some low traditional music playing in the background. There were a few people praying and the members who ran the center were there. They all were very welcoming and helpful in our understanding of their faith. The people praying gave us a variety of responses on what Durga meant to them. The most common was that she represented protection and unity within the members of the faith.

We were able to meet privately with a member of the center that spoke very good English, Topiwala. He told us that Durga was the Goddess of war and they call on her in times of battle for protection, energy, and strength. He further explained that she promotes wholeness and togetherness, an extremely important ideal of Hindis. He went on to explain that when they pray, they are not asking for help to benefit themselves, they are praying for each other and the well being of their entire community. One thing that he seemed to stress over and over again was that the most important part of the Durga Puja festival was the community coming together and a feeling of connectedness with your neighbors and community. During the festival I come to the community center to become connected with the other people in our community (Topiwala, 2011). What we took the most from the center is the Hindu value of collectivism and togetherness, all working as one toward a common goal. The festival is celebrated over nine days and ten nights. Depending on where you are in the world the days and nights are called different things. Each day worships a different form of Durga. The most common way the festival is celebrated that we found is on the first day she is worshiped as the daughter of the mountains (Himalayas) and is brought into the festival with her face covered by a veil. By the third day she is worshiped as the goddess of bravery and her face is unveiled (Vihar, 2007). During the festival everyone dances around an idol of the Goddess and brings her gifts such as cloths and food offerings. He said that the eat great food, and have fun while dancing and chanting for their protector (Topiwala, 2011). Another man at the Hindi center told us that Durga likes to dance and they want to please her so they all dance around her. They

beat drums and celebrate during the festival. They are celebrating victory of good over evil and coming together as one whole entity. They also practice group yoga and meditation during the festival. On the last day she is brought to a nearby lake or stream and submerged under water, which signals the end of the festivities. In India, seventy or more statues of Durga will be submerged in just the Buriganga River this year. According to Hindu belief, submerging Durga along with her children puts them on their journey to kailash, where her husband resides, (Durga Puja Ends with Idol Immersion, 2011). There are three communicative aspects of the festival that we wish to address, collectivism, worldview, and developing an identity. The idea of collectivism came straight from our course readings and was easy to spot in this event. The main purpose of the event highlights collectivist ideals and is all about bringing the community together. People believe that praying to Durga empowers and protects them all. We saw the idea of developing worldview in the festival as well. The fact that Hindis celebrate this festival from the time they are born to the time they leave the Earth means that it has a huge impact on their view of the world. Any religion greatly influences its members worldview, and this is no exception. From birth, the Hindi religion teaches its followers that community and being one is of superior importance. They all believe in coming together for a common goal over individualistic values that we celebrate in the United States of promoting oneself regardless of the impact on the community as a whole.

This festival helps people develop an identity by providing a common ground for all of the members to identify with. The two ways in which we develop our identities are a vowal and escription. A vowal is the identity that we envision for ourselves, who we think we are supposed to be and how we think that we are supposed to act (Samovar, 2009). Hindis vision of who they want to be and how they should act starts at a young age and comes from the morals taught to them by their different forms of Brahma, one of the most important being Durga. She teaches them the value of unity and intelligence. She promotes education and using our intelligence for the greater good of the community. Identities can be escribed on people as well. The people of the Hindi community are reactive in ascribing identities because they believe that past behaviors reflect our present and future behaviors. Any active member of this religion is expected to worship and pray for the same values that the other members do. They are also proactive in escribing identities in the sense that they lead their members to act in a certain way by pressuring them to take on certain identities. Like any other religion, the worship centers tell you what to believe about the world and how one should act in it. The ideas come from the history and stories of the religion itself. Communication reflects our identities and is constitutive of it. Our identity is always the interplay between similarities and differences; it always involves expectations (Samovar, 2009). These expectations are highlighted by Durga as she promotes how she expects us to act in society.

America is a country that is split down the middle on a lot of different issues. One that we thought fit in great with the Durga Puja festival is Americans involvement in the Middle East. Americans who are for the war and those who are against the war battle daily about whose argument is more sound. People on either side are unable to come together on a consensual decision of where we should be in terms of our invasion of Iraq. The reason that we think that the Durga Puja festival would help Americans in this scenario is that it would give Americans something to come together to look towards. Although all Americans are not religious, we want to emphasize that it is more the act of getting together and believing in a singular thing that will bring all of our strengths together for the greater good of America. This concept feeds directly into the idea of collectivism. Another reason that this festival could be a great success in America is that you do not need to attend a church, or place of worship to give Puja. Anybody can stay at home, and create a shrine to worship at home. Since Americans may not want to worship together, or leave their house at all, having the option to just do the work at home, with your family is very exciting. American people have many different religions. Judaism, Catholicism, Hinduism, and Christianity are all prominent religions here, and American people may have a hard time all coming together to worship anything. This would allow them to tailor their prayers to their own lifestyle, and not rely on a priest, rabbi or any other religious leader to lead the prayers (Veylanswami, 2011). Americans would not need to make this a religious prayer, just knowing that the other people in the

neighborhood, even if they are different, will still be praying to the same thing, and that would bring about a feeling of collectivism and community unity (Rajhans, 2010). America is an individualistic nation in all senses. We promote self-growth, which sometimes steps in front of community growth. We should be invested in our self growth with the over all community in mind instead of the common ideal of moving ourselves forward with no regard to our neighbors or how we are impacting the community at large. When talking about current issues in America the occupy Wall Street movement comes to mind. The reason that the occupy Wall Street movement has been ineffective is that they have not been able to focus on one clear purpose for their movement. It has become a place to spit out complaints about the hording of wealth in America. If the members of occupy Wall Street could come together and find a common goal they are working for they would be much more effective. The Wall Street movement also highlights the fact that the top ten percent of Americans are hording all the wealth. Instead of having collectivist ideals and using their great wealth to better the nation, they are hording it and using unethical business practices to impoverish the nation. If they would forget about themselves and actually care about everyone else that lives in America, we would have harmony in our community, less dispute, and an over all sense of communal well being in our society. Topiwala from the Hindu center commented on American people, and how they rarely come together for anything. In America, people will come together for sporting events, concerts and elections, but they stay separated on religious events. In Hinduism, it is important to embrace Durga and not let others beliefs cause doubt in your

faith.(Topiwala, 2011). Even though we dont believe that everyone should have the same religious views, he makes a good point. Americans are so divided, if we could adopt some more collectivist behaviors it would help us come together and fight for a common cause, which would be much more effective. If we had something that would connect us all, we would be able to come together and in turn be a stronger more unified nation. The Durga Puja is a very important festival for the Hindu people, and also something that could be supremely beneficial to Americans. People would finally have something to come together about, and our nation would not be so divided. Peoples worldviews, identity and collectivism would all have a good ceremony to become stronger, and more rounded. People would finally have a common ground to come together with the people in their community that might be different, or have different views and religions. Anything that helps to bring cultures together would be helpful here in America where there are so many different customs and ways of life. Durga may not be able to protect us all the time, but coming together as a community and praying to her, could bring peace of mind to American people and give people a way to feel connected with one another.

References Ghosh A. (2000). Spaces of Recognition: Puja and Power in Contemporary Calcutta. Journal Of Southern African Studies, 26(2), 289-299. Kovacs, A. (2004). You don't understand, we are at war! Refashioning Durga in the service of Hindu nationalism. Contemporary South Asia, 13(4), 373-388. Rajhans, S. G. (2010). Goddess Durga the mother goddess & her symbolism. Retrieved from http://hinduism.about.com/od/hindugoddesses/a/durga.htm Samovar, L. Porter, R. McDaniel, E. (2009). Communication Between Cultures. 7th edition. Boston: Wadsworth, cengage learning. Topiwala. (2011, November 29). Interview by CP Polevoy [Personal Interview]. Durga Puja. VEYLANSWAMI, S. (2011). Making Your Home God's Home. Hinduism Today, 33(4), 10-11. Vihar, Kendriya . (2007). Different forms of Durga. Retrieved from http://www.durgapuja.org/different-forms-of-durga.html (2011, October 14). Durga Puja Ends with Idol Immersion. India -- West. p. A44.