Maha Navratri 2018 Preparation And Puja Vidhi

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The 9 auspicious days of Navratri are about to start. It is a festival which is celebrated all over the country with a lot of grandeur and fanfare.

Maha Navratri is celebrated before Dussehra, in the month of Ashwin. All the nine days are dedicated to offering prayers to Maa Durga.

Maa Durga is a very powerful Goddess. She is the epitome of strength, success and prosperity. She was crreated as an energy by the gods in order to defeat the evil buffalo-man Mahishasura. She is the example of Triumph of Good over evil.

It is important to invoke Maa Durga's blessings during the Navratri time. It is said that whoever invokes Maa Durga, will recieve her blessings and get courage to win over all the obstacles in life. They will also be blessed with good health and prosperity for the rest of the year.

The Maha Navratri Pooja is done specifically to invoke Maa Durga's blessings. It is done on the eighth day of Navratri. This was the day Maa Durga was born as the destroyer of the demons and hence it is important to conduct a pooja on this day.

This pooja is very powerful in attaining the divine blessings of the goddess in the form of prosperity and knowledge. Therefore, performing the pooja in the right way is important.

Here is all the information regarding the right way of conducting pooja and aarti. Take a look.

Preparation Of The Pooja

These are the things required for the pooja:

- One photo of Maa Durga

- Durga Saptashati, which is the armour of Goddess Durga

- Cardamom, cloves, sindoor (vermilion)

- Mango leaves, coconut and water in a kalash

- Dhoop, incense sticks, matchbox, and sandalwood paste

- Diyas

- Rice, beetle leaves and beetle nut

- Hibiscus, lotus and rose

- Pomegranate and banana

- Sweets like laddoo and peda

- Panchpatra

- Mat

- Jowar seeds sown in a pit on the first day of Navratri.

Make sure that all the pooja ingredients are pure and clean. The pooja should be conducted in a clean place with higher elevation. People who will sit in the pooja are required to take a bath early in the morning and wear clean clothes.

Pooja Vidhi

Clean the puja sthan (place where the puja is to be performed) and perform the Pavitikaran by sprinkling some gangajal. Thereafter, follow the following steps.

- Adorn the picture of Goddess Durga with a garland of fresh flowers.

- Take a round earthen container and add some compost (mad of sil and water only); then sow the barley seeds in it. The devotee has to keep watering these seeds regularly for the nine days.

- Fill the kalash with water from a clean source. Add some coins and betel nuts. Tie a red thread or moli around the neck of the Kalash. Wrap the coconut also in a red cloth and place it on top of the kalash. Adorn the coconut with some rice and sindoor.

- Now you can place the Kalash on the container in which barley seeds have been sown.

- Light the diya, incense sticks and dhoop. Keep reciting Maa Durga's names. You can keep the DIya burning for all the nine days, by regualrly adding ghee as a fuel. It should be a cow's ghee only. Those observing a fast should light a diya which will run for all the nine days. Such a diya is known as Akhand Jyot.

- Prepare the aarti thali with roli, rice, sindoor, camphor and a diya.

Aarti

- Perform the aarti with the prepared thali and distribute the prasad to the people around.

- During the aarti, you can chant her arti, other songs or the Durga Stuti as well.