Hindu Pooja Garland

Garlands have an important and traditional role in every festival, the Gods are decorated with garlands made from different fragrant flowers and leaves. Both fragrant and non-fragrant flowers and religiously-significant leaves are used to make garlands to worship deities. Some of those flowers are as follows: jasmine, champaka, lotus, lillies, ashoka, nerium/oleander, chrysanthemum, roses, hibiscus, pinwheel flowers, manoranjitam etc.

 

Playing the perfect host is an integral part of the Indian culture and tradition. As such, Indian people go to great lengths to make their guests feel welcome. Garlanding, aarti and applying tilak, or a red vermillion mark, on the forehead of the guest is, thus, an important part of the reception ritual. There are basically two reasons behind the garlanding tradition of India. Firstly, it showcases one's happiness at receiving the particular guest and secondly, it is a form of publicly acknowledging the guest's importance.  The fact that apart from guests, it's only the various gods and goddesses, who are garlanded, shows the significance attached to this garlanding tradition in India. And it's almost always accompanied by application of tilak and arti.