Deepavali Vs Divali : Know the Difference

 An annual vocabulary dispute inevitably surfaces with the celebrative 'festival of lights'


Root sounds

The term comes from the samskrta : dīpa and āvali  .The former denotes 'light' while the latter refers to a continuous line.Hence, dīpāvali means ' a row of lights '

Its meaning can be expanded and perceived in many ways.Today,many see it as a representation of light over darkness - a sign of illumination.

What about Diwali then ? 

Diwali is simply a corrupted form of Deepavali used in the North. But let us not demonise its usage. A lot of other samskrta sounds are heavily corrupted and used in other languages as well. So it is not fair for the yester-year embryo-turned keyboard warriors to bash those who wish ' happy diwali' instead of deepavali.

When you can carelessly convert ṣaṇmukha ( pronounced shhaNmukha ) to sanmuga or Hospital to Haspitri and add suffixes ( i.e Shiva --> Shivan , Vinayaka ---> Vinayagar ) to distort the originality of those words, you have no rights to bash a community which prefers to use Diwali over Deepavali.

Stop inducing jealousy in the hearts of the London Royal Circus' clowns with your 'culture' policing on social media.

The image above was virally shared previously. Jokers think that 'deepavali' is an exclusive Tamizh word. There is no Tamizh or Telugu way to pronounce a word. A word is pronounced as how it is done in its originality, unless you translate it wholly. Deepavali is sanskrit,not tamizh.

Pronouncing car as caar-u does not make 'car' a Tamizh word. Get it ?

Deepavali is used by Telugus, Malayalees, Konkanis and other ethnicities of the nation - not just Tamizhs.

Forget about terminology, most barely know the scriptural relevance of Deepavali.

As such, stop pretending to be Krshna's sidekick who destroyed Narakasura to have a special emotional surge should someone use Diwali instead of Deepavali.

Stay calm and enjoy the Marukus.. I mean Murukus.

Wishing all an advanced Happy Deepavali.