Vedic Katha
Diwali is the festival of lights, but why do we light so many lamps? From welcoming Rama home to the inner lamp of knowledge and the light that grows…
No image says Diwali like a row of small clay lamps glowing in the dark. The very name, deepavali, means "a row of lamps".
In the best-known story, the people of Ayodhya lit lamps to guide Rama home from exile. Lighting a diya is, in that sense, an act of welcome, to a returning king, to Lakshmi who enters a bright and clean…
At a deeper level, every Diwali story is the same story, Rama over Ravana, Krishna over Narakasura, the gods over the demons, knowledge over ignorance.
The oil lamp is also a picture of the self: the clay body, the oil of our tendencies, the wick of the ego, and the flame of awareness that burns them clean.
One lamp loses nothing by lighting another. That is the final meaning of the festival of lights: joy, knowledge and fortune grow by being shared.
One lamp loses nothing by lighting another. The festival of lights teaches that joy, knowledge and fortune grow by being shared, a street full of diyas is a picture of a society where no one lets their corner…
Vedic Katha
The complete story, its characters and sources, on Vedic Katha.