Ram Navami

Festival celebrated on the ninth day of
the bright (waxing) half of the lunar
month of Chaitra (March–April). Ram
Navami is celebrated as the birthday of
the god Rama, the seventh avatar of the
god Vishnu, and this festival also ends
the spring Navaratri festival of the
Goddess. The Goddess festival of
Navaratri, observed twice yearly in the
spring and in the fall, ends each time
with a celebration for Rama. The reason
for this festival sequence is not entirely
clear but probably reflects cultural
imperatives to contain the explosive but
uncontrolled fertile feminine energy
personified by the Goddess with the stable and predictable masculine energy of
Rama. Ram Navami is widely celebrated
across India, but especially in Ayodhya,
the city traditionally deemed his birthplace. In their celebrations, devotees
(bhakta) may worship in their homes,
fast (upavasa), attend religious discourses (katha), or go to temples for
darshan and worship. With the recent
growth of Hindutva (militant, politicized Hinduism) this holiday has
become a day for large demonstrations
and political action. This has been
particularly true in Ayodhya, where the
continuing struggle to build the Ram
Janam Bhumi temple at the site of
Rama’s birthplace has made this day
particularly significant.