Bhai Dooj: How is this festival different from Rakshabandhan

In the first legend, Bali the mighty daitya (loosely translated as demon) king had vanquished Lord Indra (the king of the devas, or gods). So powerful and just was he that his subjects started venerating him like a god. Threatened, the devas approached Lord Vishnu for help. Bali was renowned for his charity.

So Lord Vishnu took the form of a Brahmin (vamana) and asked Bali to grant him the land he could cover in three steps. When the king agreed, Vishnu assumed his grand celestial form, covered the earth with one step, the sky with the next, and asked Bali where he should place his third step. Bali offered his own head for the third step, and the Vamana dispatched him to the netherworld.

However, Lord Vishnu was very impressed with Bali, and granted him a boon. Bali asked Him to guard his domains in the netherworld, which the God agreed to, leaving his abode, Vaikuntha.

Later, Goddess Lakshmi, Vishnu’s wife, disguised as an ordinary woman, tied a thread around Bali’s wrist, asking for a wish to be granted in return. He agreed, and she asked him to release her husband back to His abode.

To honour this act, women tie a thread around their brothers, chanting a mantra that, roughly translated, says, “I tie around you the same thread that was tied around Bali’s wrist. May you stay steadfast like him.”

The other legend is about Draupadi tying a thread around Lord Krishna’s wrist in the Mahabharata, and him coming to her aid when the Kauravas tried to disrobe her.

Basically, Raakhi is about women asking their brothers to stand firm by their sides and protect them.

Why is Bhai Dooj celebrated?

Bhai Dooj is associated with Lord Yama, the god of death, and his twin sister Yami, who is believed to be the river Yamuna. Yama and Yami are the children of Sun and his wife Saranya, or Sanjana.

As the god of death and the one entrusted with keeping the karmic balance sheet of all living beings, Lord Yama rarely got time to meet his sister, who loved him dearly. Once, on the second day of the Kartik month, he went to visit Yami. She welcomed him with a feast and a tika (sacred marking) on his forehead.

Thus, it is believed that a sister who feeds her brother and puts a tika on his head on this date protects him from death, and from the constant cycle of rebirth and dying.

Instead of asking her brother for protection, here, the sister with her love is putting a mark of protection on her brother.

The brother and sister taking a dip in the Yamuna together on this day is considered especially auspicious.

“Raakhi has become very popular today because of cultural reasons more than religious. There is the legend of the Rajput queen Karnavai sending a raakhi to the Mughal emperor Humayun, seeking his protection. This account can’t be found in history, but it shows how Raakhi remained popular even under Muslim rule. When the British tried to partition Bengal, people tied raakhi to each other to demonstrate their unity. Movies have also played a part in popularising Raakhi. But if we look at religion alone, we have Raakhi along with Bhai Dooj, with both the brother and the sister protecting each other,” Dr Ramesh Kumar Upadhyay, president of the Bhartiya Jyotish Aadhyatm parishad in Jamshedpur, said.

Traditionally, in an exogamic society, where girls were often married outside their clans and villages, festivals like Raakhi and Bhai Dooj played an important role in keeping the daughter linked to her paternal household and gaining some security from that.

Significance of tilak and threads

The paraphernalia used in Hindu festivals all has its significance. The thread in Raakhi signifies ties to family and duty. To be free of all bonds, one has to renounce the household and become an ascetic. Threads are such an integral part of the subcontinent’s rituals that even Muslims tie a thread at the dargahs of Sufi saints.

The tilak, meanwhile, has different meanings based on its shape and the material used — sandal paste, vermillion, ash, etc. used to draw a dot, a vertical line, three horizontal lines, etc.

The tilak in Bhai Dooj signifies the love the sister holds for the brother and the prayers she offers for his well-being.