S D Subrata

Another name of Dol Purnima is Dola Yatra. A traditional Hindu Vaishnava festival. The Dola Yatra festival is associated with the outdoor festival of Holi. Another name of this festival is Basant Utsav. Dol Yatra is held on the full moon tithi of Phalgun month. Lord Randha-Krishna is worshiped on this day. The dola yatra of Bengali Hindus revolves around Randha Krishna, who is placed on a dola and worshiped on that day.

Abir is the main attraction of Dol Purnima. This day is the day to paint in the colors of Abir. The day after Dol is Holi festival. Holi is the festival of colors. Dol Purnima is the spring festival of Bengal. Every year Bengalis celebrate this day by playing colors. Dola Yatra is like a spring call.

On this day, there is only one melody in the air, "Paint it, go, go, go, before you go". Somewhere this Dol Purnima is called Dol Yatra. Again Falguni Purnima is also called Dol Purnima. Mahaprabhu Sri Chaitanya was born on this Purnima Tithi, hence Dol Purnima is called Gauri Purnima. Dol Purnima is a very mythical event. On this tithi, Shri Krishna played Holi with Abir and Gulal in Vrindavan along with Randha and his gopis and from that event the Dol game originated.

Abir is the main attraction of Dol Purnima. This day is the day to paint in the colors of Abir. God worshiped on this day is Randha-Krishna. Dol is not only a Bengali festival, Dol Purnima is celebrated all over the world with different names. This festival is known as “Holi” all over the world.

Dol is usually observed on Purnima Tithi. Dol and Holi have different meanings but are the same thing. The reason behind this is the same. The word Holi is derived from “holika”.

Holika was the sister of Maharishi Kashyap and Diti's son Hiranyakashipur. And Hiranyakashipur's son was Prahlad. Prahlad was a devotee of Lord Vishnu despite being born in the Asura clan. His father was angry with him for this. Because he placed Lord Vishnu above his father. So his father decided to kill his own son. Prahlada was religious. So it was not easy to kill him.

There was no way he could be killed. Hiranyakashipu then ordered his son to be burnt. On the other hand, Holika got the boon of never being harmed by fire. So to kill Prahlada Holika decides to jump into the fire with Prahlada. But despite getting a Holika boon, that day was not saved. Prahlad survived with the blessings of Vishnu. But Holika got burnt in the fire. As she abuses her groom, her groom perishes while jumping into the fire and she burns to ashes. Holi or Dol festival is celebrated from that day.

Many people make clay dolls for Holika and keep the dry leaves in the house and burn them. People celebrate that day in different ways. And the next day is Dol Utsav. According to other sources, Lord Krishna killed a demon named Keshi on the day of Vasant Purnima. Keshi was a tyrannical and cruel demon.

For this, this day is celebrated in Ananda Utsava to subdue this tyrannical demon and destroy the evil forces. Vaishnavas believed that on the day of Dol Purnima, Lord Krishna used to paint Radha in Vrindavan and play with colors. And accompanied by their Gopigan. Since then, color play started with Abir on Dole Day.

The writer is a, Poet and Essayist, Sunamganj.