Senjuti Vrata (Bengali: সেঁজুতি ব্রত) is an annual monthwide Hindu ritual or vrata (religious vow), mainly observed in the Bengali Hindu community in West Bengal and Bangladesh.[1] The meaning of Senjuti is “observance of the evening lamp”. In the Bengali Hindu houses of rural Bengal, unmarried girls aged five to nine years observe this festival by painting alpana and lighting lamps in the courtyard of the house every evening for a month from the Sankranti of Kartik month to the last day of the month of Agrahayan or Agrahayan Sankranti (mid-October to mid-November). The purpose of the vrata is to get a good husband and family, to have children, to protect them and increase all kinds of wealth and to live happily and peacefully. In the alpana and rhyme of the vrata, these motives and real-life problems of the innocent mind are reflected. The Mynah bird appears frequently in the Alpana design of this vrata to keep away the co-wives.[2]
- ^ Basak, Shila (1998). Banglar Brata Parvan (in Bengali). Pustak Bipani. p. 59. ISBN 81-85471-54-1.
- ^ Chakrabari, Kunal (2001). Religious Process: The Puranas and the Making of a Regional Tradition. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. p. 153. ISBN 0199482543.