💦Holashtak - होलाष्टक

Holashtak will start from Sunday, 17 March 2024 and will continue till Sunday, 24 March 2024.

Many stories of Holashtak are popular, among them the story of Kamdev and Prahlad is the most popular.

1) Katha
According to mythological belief, on the Ashtami date of Falgun Shuklapaksha, Kamdev had broken the penance of Bhagwan Shiva. Due to this he got angry and he had burnt Kamadeva. After this, Devi Rati, the wife of Kamadeva, worshiped Bhagwan Shiva. After this, after eight days, Shivji heard his prayer and gave the boon of revival to Kamdev.

2) Katha
Bhakta Prahlad was born in a demon (Rakshas) family, but he was an ardent devotee of Bhagwan Vishnu. His father Hiranyakashyap did not like this at all. For this reason, he tortured Prahlad a lot from the Ashtami date of Falgun month till the full moon. When even his tortures did not affect Prahlad, he asked his sister Holika to sit in the fire with Prahlad on the full moon day (purnima).

Holika had the boon of not being burnt by fire. Even when Holika sat with him in the fire, Prahlad did not get burnt, but Holika got burnt to ashes. For this reason, the eight days before Holi are considered inauspicious and Holika is burnt on the purnima, which symbolizes the victory of good over evil. Only after this the festival of Holi is celebrated.

Many religious reasons have been given behind calling the time of Holashtak inauspicious, but the main reason is related to your health. The weather starts changing a lot in the week before Holi starts. Between this change, sometimes winter and sometimes summer keep on coming and going. Due to this change of weather, the immunity of the body becomes weak. Therefore, the possibility of a person coming in the grip of diseases also increases.

In any auspicious work, the workload increases excessively, if in such a situation the person is in the grip of any disease, then the possibility of not doing those works properly will increase. For this reason, any auspicious work has been prohibited by terming these eight days of weather change as inauspicious, so that people can remain healthy and celebrate the coming festival in a healthy and happy way. After Holi, the weather will be changed and the effect of heat increases rapidly.