Vishwakarma Puja is being celebrate today
KATHMANDU: SEPT. 17 – Vishwakarma Puja is an important festival of Hindus that is usually observed every year in mid-September. Lord Vishwakarma is regarded as the Lord of creation, the divine architect and engineer in the Rig Veda.
The day is observed to celebrate the birth anniversary of Lord Vishwakarma and hence it is also known as Vishwakarma Jayanti. While some scriptures refer to him as the son of Lord Brahma, others also state him to be an incarnation of Lord Shiva.
What is Vishwakarma Puja?
It is a pooja of Lord of art, architecture or engineering, Lord Vishwakarma. In a word, it is a worship and tribute to all those who invented the technology. It is a salutation to all who worked in the field of physics for the betterment of people.
Lord Vishwakarma has four hands, wears a crown, wears lots of gold jewellery, and holds a water-pot, a book, a noose and craftsman’s tools in his hands.
Hindus widely regard Vishwakarma as the god of architecture and engineering.
Vishwakarma Puja is regarded as “a resolution time for workers and craftsmen to increase productivity and gain divine inspiration for creating novel products”.
How do we celebrate Vishwakarma Puja?
The celebration generally is done within the factory premises or shop floor, office or workshops. All the machinery are worshipped along with the worship of Vishwakarma. People worship their vehicles along with machinery. Red and white cloth and holy treads are offered to machinery and vehicles.
The picture of Vishwakarma is taken out in procession in many parts of Nepal after the pooja is over. People install pictures of lord Vishwakarma at the corners of crossroads and put statues and idols of him in corner of the street. This occasion in a way also marks the start of the festive season that lasts till Diwali.
It is said that the worship of Vishwakarma has been prepared by fulfilling the health criteria as the risk of coronavirus with the new variant is still there. There is a religious belief that if one worships the various tools used by the artisans today, it will last a long time, will not deteriorate during work and will be able to do good deeds.
There is a religious belief that Vishwakarma hid Lord Krishna in the middle of the sea as a ‘gate of distinction’ after he was afflicted by a demon in Dwaparayuga. Prof. Dr Ram Chandra Gautam, former chairman of the Nepal Panchang Adjudicating Committee and a theologian, says that the tradition of worshipping Vishwakarma as a successful architect has been established since the construction of ‘Veda Dwarka’ in the middle of the sea in one night.
Dwarka is also considered the guardian deity of the west, one of the four guardian deities of ancient India. Vishwakarma’s ‘Gate of Distinction’ is still believed to be in the middle of the sea in the Indian state of Gujarat. Vishwakarma is also considered a specialized knower of architecture. Architect Shiva Pokharel says that he is believed to have prepared the text of Vastu Shastra called Vishwakarma Prakash.
In this remembrance, the artisans of Nepal today worship Vishwakarma in a grand manner and respect his erudition and believe that if they do so, they will also get the virtue of Vishwakarma. In this belief, worship is performed even in the vehicles connected to the engine today.
In memory of the author and scholar of the book Vastu Shastra, architects also celebrate this day as Vastu Day. Recently, the renaissance of architecture has also started in Nepal. In one of the four sub-Vedas, the subject of architecture is mentioned. The number of people constructing cities and houses based on the endangered architectural Vedas has started increasing.
