Story Behind Holi

In India, Holi is a festival which is liked by everyone regardless of everything. Primarily, it was celebrated by Hindus but gradually it became popular among non-Hindu communities as well. Holi is a festival of colors which is also known as ‘Rang Panchami’. From children to adults, everyone likes to play with colors on this day. It marks the beginning of spring season. We observe this festival usually in the month of March. The day we set bonfire before Holi is known as ‘Chota Holi’ or ‘Small Holi’ and we smear colors on each other the next day which is said to be the ‘Big Holi’. But why do we celebrate Holi? Want to know the story behind it? Well, read on to find out.

Story behind Holi:

There once was a king named Hiranyaksahyapu who was a king of demonic Asuras. After a vigorous thap, he was granted a boon by Lord Brahma that no man or animal could kill him. This made him so arrogant that he made an announcement by his messengers that everyone should treat him as god and worship only him but his own son Prahlada was a devotee of Lord Vishnu. The boy finished his studies from Ashram and continued worshipping Lord Vishnu for he had immense devotion for Vishnu. This made Hiranyakashyapu angry and warned his son not to worship Vishnu but Prahlada didn’t consider his father’s words, choosing to remain devoted to Vishnu and asked his father to surrender himself to Vishnu. This made Hiranya even more angry and he gave his son cruel punishments.

He asked Prahlad to jump from a mountain. Prahlad did accordingly but he remained unharmed as Lord himself saved his beloved devotee. Surprised by this, King Hiranya made his son jump into the well but even this time, he was unharmed. Then Hiranya ordered a wild elephant to crush Prahlad but the elephant’s power didn’t work on him. At the sight of this, Hiranya got even more shocked and he sent Prahlad into the poisonous angry snakes but the snakes couldn’t harm him as he was protected by god. Exhausted Hiranya, called his sister Holika who was a demoness and was granted a boon that fire could do no harm to her. Holika arrived and took Prahlad into her lap and sat on fire with him. She wore a shawl to protect herself but a gust of wind blew the shawl from Holika onto Prahlad that the fire burnt her alive and Prahlad got protected by Lord Vishnu as her boon would work only if she was alone on fire. This is the reason we celebrate Holi to commemorate demoness Holika which symbolises the celebration of victory over evil. We set bonfire before Holi to destroy inner impurities that exist within us and to gain superficial qualities.

Finally, Hiranya got desparate and frustrated by this and asked Prahlad if his god was everywhere to which Prahlad said yes. Then Hiranya took a mace and hit hard a pillar in anger that the pillar broke and there came a mighty form out of it which was half man and half animal known as Narasimha Swami. This is also said to be one of Lord Vishnu’s incarnations to kill Hiranyakashyapu for his sins. As soon as he came out of the pillar, he took Hiranya into his hands and pulled out his intestines with his hands, thus killing him. Later, Prahlada bowed before him and the god blessed him.

So, this is the story of Holi. Hope you guys enjoyed reading it. Let’s hope everyone has a colourful and safe Holi each and every year.