Vice President offers Bibaha Panchami best wishes

KATHMANDU: Vice President Ramsahaya Prasad Yadav has extended best wishes for the happiness, peace, prosperity and good health of all the Nepali sisters and brothers within the country and abroad on the occasion of the Bibaha Panchami festival.

In a message of best wishes today, the Vice President said the Bibaha Panchami observed on the Shukla Pakshya Panchami (the fifth day of the waxing moon in the Nepali month of Mangsir) every year carries a significant religious and cultural significance in the Sanatana faith.

He has expressed the belief that the historical, cultural, religious and indigenous rituals associated with the festival also infuse the positive values as truth, love, compassion, tolerance, friendship, cooperation, fellow feelings, fraternity etc among the entire humanity.

Vice President Yadav opined that anomalies and aberrations have increased in the name of religion, culture, tradition and customs of late while celebrating Bibaha Panchami and called for forsaking such aberrations.

“The originality of Bibaha Panchami might relegate in the backburner due to the imported and expensive culture like constructing costly canopies and statues from a large quantity of grains, spending hundreds of thousands. On the one hand celebrating Bibabaha Panchami amidst festivities and on the other hand the narrative that is being propagated much in recent days that people should not tie the knot on this day might give negative message. All should be conscious and cautious on this,” he said.

On the occasion of Bibaha Panchami, grand ceremonies are organised at the temples dedicated to god Ram and goddess Janaki, amidst the worshipping, and religious and cultural rituals.

The Bibaha Panchami festival commemorates the wedding of lord Ram with Janaki or Sita. According to the scriptures, the marriage between the Hindu deities Ram and Sita was solemnized on this day during the Treta Yuga or epoch.

Hymns praising Sita and Ram, stories related to their life, religious discourses and processions are organized at the Janaki Temple in Janakpurdham.

On this occasion, a large number of devotees from within the country and abroad visit Janakpurdham, the capital of Madhesh State to partake in the celebrations.