I had written about my tryst with the Tamil festival called ‘Kartigai Deepam’ last year. This is a 10 day festival, and on the day of Kartigai Deepam, a fire is lit on top of the Arunachala hill in Tiruvannamalai and lakhs of people arrive there to circumambulate around this hill and lamp.

I visited mahadeepam karthigai festival at Arunachala in 2023 finally, read my blog here. Or watch my vlog:

I had been hoping that in 2020 I may be able to spend it in Tiruvannamalai or at least South India. However, with the COVID situation taking over almost all of this year, I didn’t even remember about this festival. Let alone plan anything. I was here in Ahmedabad at the Trimandir ashram. And I had a great time celebrating Navratri in October. And about 15 days later it was Diwali, also celebrated with other Gujarati folk around us. And then I realised in another 15 days on the full moon right after Diwali, we celebrate Kartigai Deepam! I hadn’t made this connection until now 😀

Sadhguru’s quote came to mind,

“In Indian culture, there was a time when there used to be a festival every day of the year — 365 festivals in a year — because a festival is a tool to bring life to a state of exuberance and enthusiasm. “

Sadhguru Jaggi (Source)

10 days of Navratri festivities, Sharad purnima, 7 days of Diwali, 10 days of Kartigai Deepam all within a span of 6 weeks. It is like a festival every day! 😀

Being in North India, or at least West India (Ahmedabad 😉 ), I started looking around to see whether here too Kartik Purnima is being celebrated. Yes, I never really paid attention to that earlier.

And yes! It is celebrated all across the different North Indian cultures!

Kartik Purnima Celebrations in North India

For Jains, Kartik Purnima is the day that the four months of monsoon are considered to come to an end. Mountain pilgrimages which were closed for monsoon start with much fanfare, monks prepare to walk again (they spend the monsoon in one place), the diet stipulations are relaxed now. And there may be more significance which I am not yet aware.

Dev Diwali – I had heard of this for a while, but had no idea what it was. And hadn’t bothered researching (Jains don’t celebrate this). Well, it turns out to be celebrated on Kartik Purnima and lighting lamps is a big part of it. 🙂

So it seems people across South India and North India spend this day lighting a lamp in their homes, workplaces and of course, temples. Many temples have 1000s and lakhs of lamps lit on this night. Here are some pics from Twitter,

And there is more,

Kartik Purnima Birthdays

Guru Nanak Jayanti falls on this day. One of the biggest days for the Sikh community – I can picture all of Punjab bursting into celebrations.

Srimad Rajchandra also has his birthday on this day. More festivities.

In fact, Dada Bhagwan, the founder of this Trimandir ashram also has his birthday on this day and so I actually woke up to the live stream of a function in the ashram and did live aarti with everyone here. 🙂

Thus, it is a big day for all these communities.

Yesterday, I was filled with much peace as I thought of Kartigai being celebrated across the country in so many ways and for different reasons. So even if I am not in the South, I can always celebrate it in some way with other communities 🙂

Looking forward to such continued festivities for weeks on end… maybe if I develop meaningful connections with many festivals then I would have a celebration all year round, as was intended in our culture 🙂

Oh and BTW, Ramanasramam live streamed their ashram pooja on this day. It wasn’t a big affair because the main circumambulation celebration was cancelled by the government due to COVID, however, they had a small pooja inside the ashram which they live streamed.