Saraswathi Pooja :
Saraswathi pooja is considered to be a very auspicious day which is celebrated on the 9th day of the Navrathri. On this auspicious day, students keep their books in the Pooja and Pray to the Goddess Saraswati who is known to bestow knowledge and wisdom to all of her worshippers. Not only do the students offer their books at the deity's feet but they also neatly cover them and make them look as good as new.On each book, we keep Sandhanam and kumkum and keep under Goddess's feet to get her blessings. Since we are keeping the books in pooja in this auspicious occasion, we have a belief that we should not read anything; the next day which is Vijaya Dashami is when we should do pooja and take the books and read thereby getting the blessings of the Goddess of learning.
We should chant the following sloka to get blessings of Goddess Saraswathi.
"Saraswathi namasthubhiyam varadekamarubhini vidhyarambham karishyami siddhibhavatume sada"
Ayudha Pooja
Ayudha Pooja is also being celebrated on the same day of Saraswathi Pooja. To all the workers the worship of their tools is a must on this day. People worship Vishwakarma who was the architect of the world. It is believed that by placing these tools in front of the god on the day will ritually purify the tools. All the tools, machines, weapons, vehicles and other devices are cleaned, painted and well polished after which they are smeared with sandalwood paste and vermilion with great care. These are further decorated with garland of flowers. In most of the companies, people use to do saraswathi Pooja one day earlier keeping their vault and other accessories which are important for their business.
In Tamil Nadu, people also take good care of the vehicles they use on this day. Motorbikes, cars, buses, bikes and even tricycle carts are cleaned, decorated with floral garlands, smeared with sandalwood paste and vermilion. Special stands were setup for auto rickshaws where they could get the makeover treatment for their vehicles
Saraswathi / Audha Pooja Recipes:
For Neyvedhyam : Usually we make one payasam, medhu vada, chole sundal(Either White chick peas or Black chick peas) and Suyyam and offer the same as neivedhyam to Saraswathi on the Saraswathi pooja. The recipes for the same are given below
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Saraswathi Pooja Lunch Menu
For Lunch, we usually prepare Sambar, Rasam, Curry, Aviyal, one pachadi, kootu, curd, dal and plain rice. We can use the vadai and suyyam which we made for neyvedhyam and serve the same for lunch as well. The lunch menu is given below. This is the menu we follow in our home.
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| Festival Lunch Menu |
