Promoted as state-level festival, Jaisinghpur Dasehra gets popular

The Dasehra mela of Jaisinghpur in Kangra district has gained prominence, as the government is promoting it as a state-level festival. The four-day Dasehra festival is being celebrated with fervour in the Jaisinghpur Assembly constituency. Thousands of people from Kangra district are participating in it.

Sources said that a large number of people from Kangra, including Baijnath, come to witness Dasehra festivities in Jaisinghpur. The festival is not celebrated in Baijnath, as the burning of Ravana’s effigy is considered inauspicious in this town of Kangra, prompting local people to visit Jaisinghpur. The festival in Jaisinghpur has become popular in the past few years.

Baijnath is a small town located about 30 km from Jaisinghpur and 60 km from Dharamsala. The people of the town are largely Hindus but they do not celebrate Dasehra, as they consider the burning of Ravana’s effigy as inauspicious. The town residents do not burn the effigies of Ravana, Kumbhkaran and Meghnadh due to a strong belief that celebrating Dasehra will invite the wrath of Lord Shiva.

Some people had tried to celebrate Dasehra in the town about a decade ago and burnt the effigy of Ravana but all of them died before the festival next year. The local people took the incident for the wrath of Lord Shiva, as Ravana was his great devotee, and since then nobody dared to celebrate the festival again.

Also, the town residents do not celebrate the festival, as the famous Shiva temple in Baijnath is among the 12 famous ‘Jotirlingas’ located in the country. A legend has it that during the Treta Yug, Ravana, in order to have the powers of invincibility, worshiped Lord Shiva in the Kailash mountain. To please the Lord, Ravana offered his 10 heads in the yajna kund. Happy over by his extraordinary devotion, Lord Shiva not only restored Ravana’s heads but also bestowed upon him the powers of invincibility and immortality.

Ravana also requested the Lord Shiva to accompany him to Lanka. Lord Shiva consented to Ravana’s request and converted himself into a ‘ling’. Lord Shiva asked him to carry the ‘ling’ and not to place it on the ground on the way. Ravana started moving in the south direction and reached Baijnath where he felt the need to answer the nature’s call. On seeing a shepherd, Ravana handed over the ‘ling’ to him. As the ‘ling’ was very heavy, the shepherd kept it on the ground. This is how the ‘ling’ got established there.

Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania will preside over the Dasehra festival in Jaisinghpur today while Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri will be the chief guest at the closing ceremony tomorrow.