The Gowri Ganesha festival forms an essential and significant part of the culture of Karnataka. The Gowri Habba is celebrated by worshipping Goddess Gowri on the previous day of Ganesh Chaturthi. People acknowledge the two festivals together as the Gowri Ganesha festival in Karnataka. As per belief, Goddess Gowri is invited to homes on Thadige or the third day of the month of Bhadra. She is welcomed as like asking her to her parents home. Lord Ganesha, her son, arrives the next day to take her back to her abode, Kailasha. Hence, the festival gets its name, ‘Gowri Ganesha Festival’.
Gowri Ganesha festival – Swarna Gowri Vratha
People observe the Swarna Gowri Vratha in adoration of Goddess Gowri, the mother of Lord Ganesha. She is also the Shakti of Lord Shiva and bestows courage and power on the devotees. Apart from courage, Goddess Gowri also bestows cordial marital relationships, spiritual growth, and auspiciousness. The Gowri Habba is performed largely by married women and forms an integral part of the Gowri Ganesha festival.
Gowri idol: People invoke the Goddess Gowri in the idol, usually made of clay. It is painted and decorated with flowers for worship. It is either placed on a plate with rice or wheat or set up on a mount. A decorated mandap with banana stems and mango leaves are established around the idol.
Worship: Women usually visit temples or are invited to worship Goddess Gowri in others’ homes. Many habitually perform the pooja for Gowri in their own homes. Women tie Gowridara, a sacred thread with sixteen knots, to their wrists. They worship the knots individually with mantras. Unmarried girls also wear the Gowridara, which has sixteen strands of thread dipped in turmeric and a yellow chrysanthemum attached to it but without the knots. Furthermore, the organisers of the pooja gift married women with baaginas or offerings of turmeric, vermilion, black bangles, black beads, a mirror, a comb, a blouse piece, cereal, coconut, and jaggery. They leave one such Baagina for the goddess.
Celebration of the festival
Celebration: The Gowri festival, as a part of the Gowri Ganesha festival, strengthens family bonds. Parents and brothers of married women offer the necessary things for the pooja or give them cash. Newly married couples offer baagina to married women and seek their blessings. Also, the organisers of the pooja also prepare a feast with Bele Holige, Huggi, Bajji and Chitranna. It continues to the next day with the Lord Ganesha’s Festival celebrations.
Ganesha Chaturthi
People in Karnataka worship Lord Ganesha on the occasion of Ganesha Chaturthi as a part of the Gowri Ganesha festival. They pay tribute to Lord Ganesha to commemorate his birth. Ganesha Chaturthi takes place in the lunar month of Bhadrapada (a Hindu month), Shukla Paksha Chathurthi (the fourth day of the waxing moon period), Madhyahan Vyapini Purvaviddha. The festival lasts for ten days and culminates on Ananta Chaturdashi. It usually falls between August and September.
Worship: People decorate the idol of Ganesha and install it at home. The priest invokes the presence of the Lord in the idol by chanting mantras known as Prana Pratishtha. After this, 16 ways of praying to the Lord follow, known as Shodashopachara. They offer 21 Durva (trefoil) blades of grass, red flowers, coconut, jaggery and 21 modhakas to Lord Ganesha. Along with Ganesha, they also place the Goddess Gowri’s idol. The festival lasts ten days, after which people immerse the idol in a water body.
Public celebration: Lord Ganesha is placed in Pandals in many localities and worshipped for ten days. At the culmination of the festival on the eleventh day, the idol is taken in a procession and immersed in a water body. Read in detail on Ganesha Chaturthi.
In conclusion, the Gowri Ganesha festival invokes divinity and joy in all.