Dear Lubomir, the word goes back to the Sanskrit daśāha-, ’ten-day period’, a compound of daśa- ’ten’ + ahar- ‘day’. In Vedic religion, chandoma-daśāha is the ten-day period before the final mahāvrata in a yearly rite of ādityānām ayana (Pañcaviṁśa-Brāhmaṇa 25,1,1.13). The term daśāha- seems to occur only in this variant of the yearly rite, in the normal gavām ayana, the texts use the synonym daśarātra for the ten-day period in the middle of the dvādaśāha ’twelve-day period’, which occurs in gavām ayana before the mahāvrata without the first and last day of the dvādaśāha (PB 4,8,5 - 4,9,19; 24,20,1). In Hindi, daśahrā- denotes especially “the tenth day of the bright half of the month Āśvin; the celebrations in honour of Durgā held on this day (vijaya-daśamī) as a culmination of the Durgāpūjā festival” (McGregor, Hindi-English dictionary,1993, p. 484). In my book “The Roots of Hinduism” (2015), p. 249 ff. I suggest that the daśahrā continues the Vedic "tenth day” + mahāvrata.
With best wishes, Asko > On 18 Dec 2023, at 20.17, Lubomír Ondračka via INDOLOGY > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dear Colleagues, > > I have an apparently very trivial question, but I have not found the answer > in my sources. > > What is the meaning of the name of the autumn festival Daśaharā? > > All the textual references I have found are to the summer festival in the > month of Jyeṣṭha. Here the name is clear: daśaharā is [a day (tithi)] > destroying (harā) the ten (daśa) [sins]. The sources mostly refer to a verse > in the Brahmapurāṇa: > > śuklapakṣasya daśamī jyeṣṭhe māsi dvijottamāḥ / > harate daśa pāpāni tasmād daśaharā smṛtā // BrP_63.15 // (Gretil) > > In other sources it is related to the descent of the Ganges, so we have the > bathing festival of Ganga Dussehra in summer. > > > If we understand the construction of the name of the autumn (Āśvin) festival > in the same way, namely daśaharā = "[the tithi] removing/destroying (harā) > the ten (daśa) [X]", what is X here? > > I once read in a secondary source that what is being destroyed here is the > ten heads of Rāvaṇa. That would be a nice explanation, but I have not found > any textual source for it. Is this really the standard meaning? And is there > any textual evidence for it? > > But even if this were correct, it would only explain the Rāmaistic form of > the festival, not the Śākta form (Durgā celebration). > > I would be grateful for your explanations and their textual references. > > Best, > Lubomir > > _______________________________________________ > INDOLOGY mailing list > [email protected] > https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology _______________________________________________ INDOLOGY mailing list [email protected] https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
