Talk:Diwali/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Picture? (2004)

I strongly feel that a picture would make way for a better article. --GatesPlusPlus 15:15, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Let's try to make it a featured article by November 1.

Criticism related to firecrackers (2004)

Should this be moved to a new article? This article should just describe the significance of Diwali festival. The social issues associated with it should be kept out. Probarbly have it link to diwali. Alren 20:54, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Pics of firecrackers and Lightening (2005)

Can anyone share pics of Diwali Lightening and Diwali firecrackers? Also , we can add Golden temple's picture decorated during diwali in Sikhism and Diwali section.--Holy Ganga 09:15, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Done --Deepak|वार्ता 00:34, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes...also the current sprinkle of photos is excellent- so beautifully shot photos--The world salutes the Rising Star...Try to be One 17:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

spelling? (2005)

The article should probably maintain a consistent spelling (Diwali, Deepavali, Dipavali) in the text, after listing some of the alternatives in the intro. Is there a consensus on which spelling should be used or should there be a vote? Willhsmit 21:52, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I vote Diwali since it's most undertood and used by the majority.--Pranathi 06:56, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Does it look like a featured article yet? (2005)

Shall we make it a candidate, or is it sure to fail?

No, it isn't up to standard yet. If nothing else it needs a lot of copyediting. Copyedit it and put it up for peer review. Guettarda 06:25, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Agree, it still needs some work - apparently Hinduism was a featured article. Maybe we should add Hindu festivals to the Hindu articles template. There are some other nice examples of featured articles here: Wikipedia:Featured_Article#Religion_and_beliefs Megapixie 06:30, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Id agree that it needs editing, although informative it doesn't read like an encyclopaedia article should. It would also be nice to add some more pictures of diwali celebrations, can anyone fine something more relevant to replace the fireworks pic?
The diwali economics part is way out of place... it needs to be updated with the stuff like muharat trading on the stock markets and also the same done by the other companies... Madhav 16:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

SHOCKING WRITE UP

RAM, WHO IS THE MAIN REASON BEHIND 60,00,00,000 PEOPLE CELIBRATING THE THIRD DAY HAS NOT BEEN MENTIONED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT REALLY FEELS PATHETIC TO NOTE THIS.''''

Read significance in hinduism --Deepak|वार्ता 19:13, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal

I don't think there is any Holiday/Festival related WP:FA. Wikipedia:WikiProject Holidays have not even set up a proper structure yet. This is why I have made a proposed structure below.

  1. Introduction:
  2. Date: Part of this section should be turned into a table for converting the Hindu calendar into the Gregorian calendar over the past ten years or so.
  3. Origin and Significance: It would be better if it was split in three section.
    1. ... in Hinduism
      1. ... in North India
      2. ... South India
      3. ... Other Parts of India (eg. Kali is worshipped in Bengal)
      4. ... Rest of world
    2. ... in Jainism
    3. ... in Sikhism
  4. Five day of Diwali This section currently has Hindu POV. More is needed on what Jains and Sikhs do.
    1. What is done on day X*
    2. Why it is done on day X* includes legends
  • X is each of the five days.

The sections "Diwali in Jainism" "Diwali in Sikhism" should be blended in avoid an emphasis on Hinduism.

Please post comments below. DaGizzaChat © 03:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I think a section should also be added on the more "modern and secular" form of Diwali, seen more in countries like the U.S., Britain and some in India where people treat the festival less relgiously but haveing more fun such as fireworks, parties, etc... DaGizzaChat © 08:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
This site has an interesting lay out, which could be taken into account. DaGizzaChat © 09:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Beautiful write up and the effort taken shows...good work :-) So have we decided the format?--The world salutes the Rising Star...Try to be One 17:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Images

This article need some good imgs. I'm sure lots of people will be having good imgs of the celebrations at their house. I've uploaded a few imgs:

--May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| r 3 $ |-| t |-|) 16:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, added an image --Vivek 17:21, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Would love to :)--The world salutes the Rising Star...Try to be One 17:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The Five days of Diwali replicates a different site

This section is essentially a copy of the page found here, which copyright 2000, all rights reserved etc. Has permission been granted to copy? --Nemonoman 16:09, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Much of this article replicates a different site

This section is essentially a copy of the page found here, which copyright 2004-2006. Has permission been granted to copy? --Nemonoman 16:46, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Deleted copyright content

I've deleted portions of this article that were cut and pasted from copyrighted content.--Nemonoman 17:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Harmful effects of firecrackers

The above article seems to be related specifically to the Diwali festival, so maybe it should be merged in. It needs quite a bit of work though, it doesn't cite sources at all. -- Colm O'Brien 14:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

The Harmful effects of firecrackers article might be better if it were more accurately re-titled to indicate its relationship to India’s holiday practices and politics; it also lacks substantive information (comparative or otherwise), documented facts or data of any sort. Once cleaned up and enhanced, the article could then be merged into the Diwali article, which seeks to provide a wealth of information about the traditions, practices, controversies and celebration of the Indian days and holidays leading up to, and following, the festival day of Diwali. ...JC 22:46, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


Clean up

Cleaned up the page, organized sections correctly (section tags were incorrect). Will add in pictures that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shreshth91 contributed. --Vivek 17:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Calendar Section

There seems to be some confusion in the calendar section of the article. First of all, as far as I know, Diwali is celebrated on the new moon day of Kartik, as mentioned in the infobox. It may be that this is the date in the Vikram samvat followed in North India, and the South Indian Shalivahana calendar has Diwali in Asvin/Ashwayuja. If so, this needs to be clarified in the article. The description of the contrasting North/South Indian calendars is correct, (as per Hindu calendar) but the inferences drawn from it are not. In North India, Diwali falls in the middle of the month of Kartik, and I gather from the description of Shalivahana calendar that Diwali in South India is celebrated in the last few days of Ashwayuja and first few days of Kartik. Could someone confirm this? --Longhairandabeard 07:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I already changed this. You are correct, the calendar in south since it starts from new moon has Divali half in Asvhin and half in kartik. It was written exactly opposite in the earlier version for some reason. --Kaveri 18:01, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Ads

With this year's Diwali drawing near, it seems people are getting desperate. For spammers: Wikipedia is not a place to advertise your website or product. Any ads WILL BE REMOVED. Though I'm glad to see that vandalism gets reverted pretty quickly. -- Longhairandabeard 18:05, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Diwali and Buddhism

I am puzzled by the reference to Diwali being celebrated by Buddhists. I have a had a long association with Buddhism and have not been aware of this. Can we have a reference?

I'm puzzled too. Can't find anything to back this up, so I'm removing it for the time being. Aside from the obvious overlap between Hindu/Buddhist populations, I can't really see any other reason for this claim. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 14:39, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually the claim it's celebrated by Buddhists (in India) is appears to be fairly common on the web (try Google). I'm sure some of it came from us but I doubt all of it did. This obviously doesn't make it correct but the fact it's so often repeated makes me think it's at least partially true. I'm guessing it's not really of any implicit religious significance but many Indian Buddhists do celebrate it to some degree for cultural and historic reasons. If this is correct, I would suggest we re-add it and include a footnote explaining this. BTW, I did come across this picture [1] (see picture 5). I won't bother to re-add it however as I don't have any evidence just a hunch and Sukh probably knows more about this then me Nil Einne 09:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I think the distinction between celebrating Diwali as a cultural festival (e.g. like Hindus/Sikhs may celebrate Christmas in Western countries) and celebrating it as a religious festival needs to be made. If Buddhists celebrate for religious reasons (as Hindus/Sikhs do - although for different reasons) then they should be included in the list. If they celebrate it merely because they live in India and it's the main festival of the year, then they probably shouldn't be included in the list.
However, I know very little about Buddhism so I'm not in a position to make a judgement on this one.  :) Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 19:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Does it merit even mentioning then? For instance, Christmas is celeberated "culturally" by many non-christians in United States. You buy gifts, have christmas party, put on the lights, etc etc. Everything but go to the church. Does this mean we start adding how all this other faiths also celeberate Christmas in the article for Christmas? Maybe a sentence or two on how the cultural aspects of Diwali are celeberated irregardless of faith. --Blacksun 13:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

UMMM... SINCE WHEN DO BHUDDISTS CELEBRATE HINDU FESTIVALS????

cAN SOME CLEAR UP TO ME WHEN BHUDDISTS AND SIKHS FOR EXAMPLE " CELEBRATE" DIWALI?? UNLESS CHRISTIANS CELBRATE EID THESE DAYS????

Sikhs do celebrate Diwali but Buddhists don't. GizzaChat © 01:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Depends on which type of Buddhists, if they are the Tibetan kind, perhaps. If they are from the NE, maybe, and if they are the pseudo-Buddhists, then no.Bakaman Bakatalk 01:39, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, you see, no one could patronize who does what?! But yes, facts are facts and they should be current...hmmm?--The world salutes the Rising Star...Try to be One 17:25, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't really agree. I think the refernce to Buddhism should be put back. If you look at the Christmas article, notce this:

Observed by Christians around the world as well as by non-Christians who observe the secular aspects of the holiday.

It is unfair to have double standars. So, I will make a parallel to this. Becuase there are Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists who celebrate Diwali as a cultural festival. Remembre, Diwali is the "Holidays" in India!

I don't think anyone would oppose adding that in the article as long as you keep the phrasing similar to the Christmas article.--Blacksun 13:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Reference Required

Please add references to all sections tagged. Rigmahroll 15:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

'Mal effects of firecrackers'

This has a POV and furthermore does not belong in this general article about the holiday. If you wish to say 'some object to firecrackers used during the holiday', that's fine; but the current information there is not suitable. Ibanix 18:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


Dhanteras

It is belived that on the day of the Dhanteras, Lord Dhanwantri born in churning of the sea. Thus he is considered the elder brother of Goddes Laxami. This day the Ayurvedic practitioners, Vaidya, Indian system of medicine practitioners, celebrates his birthday with great enthusiasm.This is an important day for the Vaidyas.

User:Dbbajpai1945@sify.com 9:09 PM IST 20 August 2006 Sunday

5 days or 1 ?

Since the article states repeatedly that it's "celebrated over five days", why is only 1 day (Oct. 21) listed for 2006? What are the 5 days? - Liberty, 20 Oct 2006

The five days section and the date section in the infobox appears to explain this well enough to me. Diwali is the middle day of the five days and is the actual day Diwali (although not the main day for all people who celebrate the festival it appears). All the other days are known by different names from a quick read of the section. Diwali/Deepavali is also the only day that's a public holiday in countries like Malaysia and Singapore. I note that this is info was likely present when you read the article as it appears to have been around since 18th October [2] so I assume it was around on 20th October when you read the article. If you don't feel the info already present is sufficient or you feel when need to repeat the explaination again, perhaps you could explain further? Nil Einne 09:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Grammer/Spelling

This article is full of typos and grammatical mistakes. I fixed a couple of mistakes, but somebody needs to go through this and fix it up. Rrten00 21:51, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Grammer? :) Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 14:37, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Hmmmm, now I didn;t expect to get a giggle here... :-)--The world salutes the Rising Star...Try to be One 10:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Name

The name issue isn't explained very well. I'm guessing from this article Diwali is the Hindi name and Deepavali is the sanskrit name (which the article mentions) Nil Einne 10:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, Diwali is the common Hindi name while Deepavali is the Formal Hindi/Sanskrit/Some other Indian langauges and the name used in South East Asia. The original word was Deepavali but since languages evolve, it was shortened to Diwali. GizzaChat © 03:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Days of Diwali

The photo of the fireworks used in celebration of Diwali is the same photograph used in the article for Alagoas state in Brazil, the caption there talks of christian holiday. This picture is being misused in one or both of these articles, someone should look into this.



fvbhvbjhdfbvhbvhjfd I feel a bit uncomfortable with this article as it has a north indian bent. In Maharashtra and Karnataka, divali is the name for the festivities and not a particular day. Each day has a different name and significance. The festivities start with Vasubaras (12 th day). So It would be a 6 day festival named Divali. (Vasubaras, Dhanatrayodashi, NarakChaturdashi, LakshmiPujan, Padva, Bhaubij). Some start it with Narakchaturdashi so it would be 4 days. I do not understand where the 5 days comes from. In Northern India 2 days are important LakshmiPuja and the Divali day and Bhaiduj is also celebrated. So I think in the intro it should say that the festivals is celebrated from 3-6 days. I started adding Maharashtra specific info but I realized I would have to change a lot of things to neutralize it and add everywhere that for us Divali is not one day but the whole chunk of 4-6 days. There is a section on Maharashtra but then it sounds like the North Indian version is the main stream version and Maharastrian way of celebrating is a version of it. Divali, for that matter anything in India, is never monolithic. The introduction itself should make it clear and the whole article should keep reminding that none of the versions are the main versions. Instead of saying Divali is the main day and saying first, second, third day of the festivities we can just refer to the actual lunar day. That way none of the version of main day would be more important than the other and none of the versions of total days would be contradictory with the current 5-day version.

--Kaveri 18:23, 3 July 2007 (UTC)


Also I changed the information about the calendars used in North and south. The information about the calendars was correct but the explanation of Diwali falling in 2 months for North and in the middle for South was completely opposite and contradictory to the calendar info. I have corrected it. --Kaveri 18:23, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

In the current version in the Narak Chaturdashi day it says - "In the evening, lamps are again lit and Goddess Lakshmi is worshipped and offered special dishes. This being a no moon day, many will offer special tarpana (offerings of water and sesame seeds) to their ancestors. " But chaturdashi is the 14th day. This looks liks Lakshmi Puja and should be on the no moon day. I think the writer got confused as for last few years the Chaturdashi and Amavasya fall on the same solar day (Called Tithikshaya - shortening of the tithi/lunar day). I am going to move it to the next day or delete it if nobody replies to this post in 1 week. --Kaveri 18:37, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Proper name

The name says Diwali, but the first word says Divali. Which is the proper name? -- Prod-You 02:16, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

"Deepavali" is the actual proper name, but its commonly called "Diwali" in everyday use, especially in North India. In South India and formally, the occasion is known by the original Sanskrit name "Deepavali" 220.238.196.205 07:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Whose Divali?

I'm just curious, who really celebrates Divali and where and when did it originate from? Because, if Hindus, Sikhs, and even Jains have Divali...why do Buddhists not seem to have this festival? Le Anh-Huy 07:26, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Buddhists celebrates this festival as well, at least in Nepal. --Eukesh 17:16, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

New year in Diwali

Nepalese celebrate new year according to Nepal Sambat in Diwali. I have also heard that people celebrate new year in Maharashtra during this time. Is it true? Thanks.--Eukesh 17:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Diwali

Diwalia is so cool. I have a person in my class who celebrates it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.232.157.78 (talk) 18:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I celebrate Depawali every year with my family this year (2008) my class has to do an asian culture and history project. I picked to make a cereal box. My topic is the Hindu festival "Depawali". For my cereal I am doing Kheer(rice pudding). It really is a cool festival that represents the welcoming of godess Lakshmi. For every festival my family pujas (prays). From : V

Divali/Diwali/Deepavali

I made some changes throughout the article and the introduction to depict the meaning of Diwali/Deepavali... The sanskrit word is Deepavali but it got corrupted over the period. Mugunth 08:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)