How to do the Vijayadashami · Dussehra puja at home

The bath, then what the house works with — the tools, the vehicle, the books, the instruments — washed, set out together and marked.

1. The morning

   Take up the jaware

   The barley sown on the first night has come up pale green; this morning it is taken up.

   1. Loosen the earth in the basin and lift out a small fistful of shoots, roots and all.
   2. Keep a few strands at the altar; the rest are for the family.
   3. The basin and the dry flowers go to a river, a pond or a tulsi pot — not the bin.

   The barley is the nine nights made visible: sown when the ghat was set, and cut on the morning the Devi leaves.

   

2. The morning

   Behind the ear

   1. Sisters and the women of the house give the shoots to the men and the children — behind the right ear, in the hair, in a turban.
   2. A few strands go into the cash box, the ledger or the purse.
   3. The elders bless whoever they are given by; in many homes the brothers give something in return.
   

3. The morning

   Ghat utthapana

   1. Offer the last of the nine nights' flowers at the ghat, and fold your hands before the Devi.
   2. Tilt the ghat gently towards the north — halavne, the moving that marks the end of the Devi's stay.
   3. The water is sprinkled through the house; the kalash is emptied where clean water goes.
   
5. 4. The parana
   5. Wash what the house works with
   6. Set them out and mark them
   7. Draw the Dussehra figure

   These 4 steps, with their drawings and mantras, are in the app

The eleventh of the day's fifteen muhurtas, in the aparahna: the puja, the katha, and the Aparajita — the hour in which nothing undertaken is lost.

1. 1. Be seated for the vijay muhurat
   2. Achaman
   3. The diya
   4. Ganesh ji first
   5. The sankalp
   6. Avahan
   7. Asana, padya, arghya, achamaniya
   8. Snan
   9. Vastra and janeu
   10. Chandan and akshat
   11. Pushpa
   12. Dhoop and deep
   13. The naivedya
   14. Tambula, phala, dakshina
   15. Aparajita puja
   16. Read the katha
   17. Shri Ramchandra Kripalu
   18. Ambe Tu Hai Jagdambe
   19. Kshama prarthana
   20. Give the prasad

   These 20 steps, with their drawings and mantras, are in the app

The Ravan dahan, and what is eaten after it.

1. 1. Cross the boundary
   2. The Shami tree
   3. Give the gold
   4. Look for the Neelkanth
   5. The Ravan dahan
   6. The evening meal

   These 6 steps, with their drawings and mantras, are in the app