Onam festival 2012 has been started today

Onam festival 2012

The celebration in kerala for Onam festival 2012 is going fabulous.

This is a Hindu festival which is celebrated in an Indian state Kerala. The festival is celebrated in the memory of Vamana avatar of Vishnu and the subsequent homecoming of the legendary Emperor Mahabali. It happens during the month of Chingam (August–September) and lasts for ten days. The festival is full of various festivities such as intricate flower carpets, snake boat races, elaborate banquet lunches, Onappottan, Kaazhchakkula in Guruvayoor, Puli Kali, Kaikottikkali etc. Just because of these festivities Onam become a unique festival.

This is an ancient festival which is still going in modern times,  rice harvest festival of Kerala and the Festival of Rain Flowers, which fall on the Malayalam month of Chingam, celebrates the Asura King Mahabali’s annual visit from Patala (the underworld). Onam is unique since Mahabali has been respected by the people of Kerala since prehistory.

It states that under Mahabali’s reign was happy and prosperous and the king was highly regarded, so much so that even the gods under Indra became jealous of Mahabali as was intened by Vishnu, and they approached Vishnu claiming that Mahabali is now equivalent to an Indra. Once Vishnu was assured that Indra’s pride has been contained and that a world with two Indras represents imbalance, Vishnu assumed the form of a dwarf: Vamana. Vamana requested three steps of land for him to live in. Given a promise of three steps of land by King Mahabali against the warning given by his Guru Sukracharya, Vamana, enlarged himself to such dimensions as to stride over the three worlds. He had grown so huge that he could step from heaven to earth, and earth to the lower worlds in two simple steps. King Mahabali unable to fulfill the promise of three paces of land to the Supreme God, offers his head for the third step. Thus, Vamana places his foot on King Mahabali’s head and sends him down to the netherworld. Being worshipped however, by Mahabali, and his ancestor Prahlada, he conceded to them the sovereignty of Patala (netherworld).

In Kerala the sale of Onam festival 2012 lottery tickets opened on July 6 and the draw is scheduled for September 7. The cost of ticket is 200 and around 1.50 lakh tickets are sold every day.

Kerala ‘Thiru Onam Bumper lottery’, billed as carrying the biggest prize money of over Rs.20 crore in the country, is seeing roaring sales.

The first prize of the ticket this year is a staggering  5 crore along with one kg of gold.

Lottery has become an option to make extra money for the poorest of the poor in the state, just becase of  35,000 authorized agents and over 100,000 retail sellers.

Kerala was the first state in the country to launch sale of lottery tickets way back in 1967 with a first prize of Rs.50,000. The ticket was priced for Rs. one.