Light imparts to Deepawali universal breadth, unique magnificence and divine dimensions rarely associated with a Festival.
As light is benevolent and auspicious, light’s birth and emergence is by itself a celebration. Seers saw light as both the Supreme Creator, as also the creation.
Reiterating Kabir, when Guru Nanak sang, ‘Eka noor te saba jaga upaya’, that is, the entire universe is born of one light, or when Prophet Mohammed uttered that the universe is nothing but the extension of His ‘Noor’ – light, they both saw the Creator as a glow of light.
It was hardly different for Shaivites who consecrated the Supreme Being as Jyotir-Linga – the light combined with phallus, the fertility factor.
This Supreme One wished, ‘Ekoham Bahusyami’ – I am one but wish to multiply, and thus out of His expansion the cosmos came into being.
Hardly different from these philosophical utterances is the common man’s allegory when on a child’s birth a mother sings: ‘Jaga ujiyaro hoya’, that is, with the child’s birth, which symbolises to her the emergence of light, ‘the world is illuminated.’
Alike, when a living self passes away, the wise say: ‘Jyoti mein jyoti samani’, that is, the flame has merged with the Supreme Flame.
The Buddhist tradition depicts, in scriptures and art, a glowing flame passing off the body of Buddha to portray his Maha Parinirvana – final extinction.
The Sun God
The Rig Veda reveres Surya the Sun God, for, unless there was light, even the manifest does not manifest. The interpretation of the Rig-Vedic Sukta by the Upanishads is far clearer. Emergence of light is also the emergence of cosmos for even if the cosmos existed, it would not manifest unless there was light.
That is why the tradition reiterated: ‘Tamsoma Jyotirgamaya’ – let the darkness depart and the light emerge, in which manifested the desire of the Un-manifest.
Metaphorically or otherwise, it is by the emergence of light that the factum of Creation has been indicated, not in India alone but also beyond.
Biblical Knowledge
The Biblical tradition heralds, ‘Let there be light and the light was there.’
Here also, the Supreme One desired the emergence and once the light was there, there was Creation too. Maybe, the light’s relation with the Creation was just symbolic, suggesting that the world existed in light and disappeared in darkness.
However, light is God’s verse that he writes on the face of the universe, and hence, whatever is divine is endowed with light, while dark avenues are devil’s abode.
This light is the endless celebration that of man and Nature.
Perceptions, perspectives, dimensions and forms are all light’s creation, and beauty, splendour, goodness, purity… its finer shades.
With light is associated love, optimism, delight, festivities and everything that is auspicious, holy or divine.
In its intrinsic form light is the attainment of ultimate knowledge and thereby of the supreme bliss, and thereafter there is no darkness and nothing in between the seer and the seen. The light is, thus, the ultimate vision of this world and the world beyond, and so its celebration, a thing of this world as also of the other.
