A devotee in a state of trance during aarti (the ritual of waving the sacred fire in front of the deity). The aarti ceremony is a communal activity, often involving the entire neighbourhood, and performed by elder members of the family.
Goddess Gauri is associated with fertility, and the theme of abundance is recreated inside the house, with fruits and floral hangings tied with mango leaves, a symbol of fertility and prosperity.
Music forms an integral part of the rituals, from the arrival of the Goddess until the time of visarjan (immersion), when the idol is taken out to the sea.
Gauri Puja typically lasts for three days during the ten-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival. The first day marks the arrival and installation of the idol; the second day involves the main puja (prayers of devotional homage) and festivities; and the third day is for the visarjan (immersion) of the idol at sea.
Various offerings made by the family and by villagers are assembled in front of the Goddess. Some of these items, like bananas, rice grains, and coconuts, are offered for a bountiful harvest, while others, such as boxes of sweets, are given as tokens of thanksgiving for the fulfilment of a wish. Some of the offerings may be used to prepare the naivedya (sacred food offerings), which is distributed as prasad (blessed food) after the puja (prayers of devotional homage) ceremony is concluded.
Unlike Ganesh Chaturthi, which is publicly celebrated all over Mumbai on a grand scale, Gauri Puja is a modest household event, performed by families inside their homes. In coastal Maharashtra, Gauri is worshipped as a singular Goddess known as Jyeshtha Gauri (jyestha meaning the elder one or the senior). The Goddess is installed on a high platform.
The Chalukya monarchs, at the very least, created favourable conditions for temple construction at sites such as Badami, Mahakut, Aihole and Pattadakal.
Within a quarter century, the Dashavatara Temple at Deogarh (c. 525 CE) expanded upon the concept of the unmanifest becoming manifest, featuring an elaborate symbolic program celebrating the multiple manifestations of the deity, in this case Vishnu. Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
The amalgamation of ideas and the combination of the architectural vocabulary of latina and kutina (the two common morphological types of temple architecture, also sometimes erroneously called North Indian and South Indian respectively) temples are seen at the site of Mahakut. Image courtesy: Dineshkannambadi (Wikimedia Commons)
An open-air ambulatory was provided for each tier, hidden in the recession of the next storey by the parapet enclosure of the kutas and the shalas. Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons