Dussehra Ravana Dahan Images HD -- Effigy Burning Night

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Jai Shri Ram! On Vijayadashami -- Dussehra -- across every city and town in India, this spectacular sight lights up the night sky: the massive effigy of the ten-headed demon king Ravana engulfed in roaring flames, the fireworks exploding in celebration, and the crowd of hundreds of thousands watching from below in joyful awe. This HD image captures Ravana Dahan at its most cinematic -- the towering effigy with its ten crowned heads and twenty arms silhouetted in fire against the dark night sky, orange and gold flames consuming it while showers of sparks rain upward into the stars. The crowd silhouettes below give a sense of the effigy's enormous scale. Dussehra (Vijayadashami) falls on the tenth day after Navratri, and celebrates the most famous victory in Hindu epic tradition -- Lord Rama's defeat of the demon king Ravana of Lanka, and the rescue of Sita from her captivity there. The Ramlila -- the theatrical retelling of the Ramayana -- is performed over the nine nights of Navratri, building to the climactic burning of Ravana on the tenth day. Ravana is a complex figure in Hindu tradition: brilliantly learned, a great devotee of Shiva, a master of the Vedas -- yet brought to ruin by his arrogance and his inability to control his desire. His ten heads represent the ten negative qualities -- lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride, jealousy, selfishness, cruelty, ill-intent, and ego -- that must be burned away in the devotee as surely as the effigy burns on Dussehra night. The largest Ravana Dahan celebrations are held at the Ramleela Maidan in Delhi and the ghats of Varanasi. Free HD download.

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