Break the myth and discover the history of the festival of Durga Puja.
Durga puja is called the best festival of Bengal. Now it got global recognition from UNESCO as well. Not only in Bengal, Bengali people throughout the world celebrate Durga Puja in abundance. More than 25 crore people participate in this festival. It is the worship festival of Maa Durga. According to Bengali culture, Maa Durga gets angry with her husband, Lord Shiva and comes to her father's house with her four children Lakshmi, Ganesh, Kartik and Saraswati.
There is also another story about Maa Durga that is linked with Durga Puja. Right before the seven days of Durga puja, the day is called Mahalaya. The culture says that on that day Maa Durga killed Mahisasur.
The story of Hudur Durga
There is also another story, rumoured about Durga in some parts of Tribal areas of Bengal and all over Chotanagpur. They call it Hudur Durga. According to them, Hudur was a Tribal leader who was attacked by the king of Banga Pradesh, but couldn’t be defeated, unless they sent a woman to kill him, as attacking a woman was against his ethics. The woman allured him and killed him. And made the way easy for the king of Bengal to take control over the tribes.
Which one is the story and which one is history?
Actually both the stories are the same, just they are on different sides of that story. The tribals have been in India since the beginning of human evolution. And the Aryans came later from the middle east. They were vagabond, tall and fair but uncivilised. And in India there were mostly brown and black people living civilised life in a very rural way. Aryans gradually poached the ruling power of the Indian subcontinent. And spread their story with elegance throughout their culture. The story of Maa Durga is the Aryan perspective of the history, and the story of Hudur Durga is the Tribal perspective of the history.
Beginning of Durga Puja in Bengal
Though it is said that this is 'Akal Bodhan', the day when Rama worshipped Maa Durga before going to fight against Ravana. But, The entire story of Ramayan is not really connected to Bengal that much. And proves that the trend of Durga puja as a culture of Bengal was massively begun during the rule of Raja Krishnachandra, the king of Murshidabad. History also says that it was Raja Krishnachandra, who included Chotanagpur in the province of Bengal.
