Rajasthan Diaries: Holi ka dahan

Let me tell you a story today. Demon king Hirnakashyap was so haughty and immoral that he barred the people of his kingdom from praying to the lord. He had a very strong desire to become immortal. In order to fulfill his dream, he started performing hard penance to please Lord Brahma. One day, Brahma appeared before him and granted him five special powers. Brahma gave Hirnakashyap the following five boons: neither a human nor an animal would be able to kill him; neither he would be killed inside the door nor outside the door, neither he would be killed during the day nor at night, neither he would be killed by any Astra nor by any Shastra, neither he would be killed on the land nor in the water or in the air. After getting this boon, the demon thought himself to be nothing less than the almighty. As fate would have it, the son born to this devil, Prahlad, was an advent devotee of Lord Vishnu. With the passage of time, Prahlad’s devotion became a thorn in Hirnakashyap’s eyes. He became very angry and decided to kill his son. After a lot of attempts failed, he took helps from his sister, Holika. Hirnakashyap’s sister, Holika, was once blessed by Brahma that she will not be harmed by fore ever in her life. She had a shawl, which would protect her. She was asked by her brother to be seated in the flames with Prahlad to kill him. However, as soon as the fire soared, the blessed shawl of Holika fluttered away to cover Prahlad. In this way, Prahlad lived and Holika burnt and died. Hiranyakshyap got frustrated and attempted to kill Prahlad himself. He tied Prahlad to a pillar and challenged him to call his Lord to save him. Prahlad answered that the Lord is omnipresent and exists even in the pillar. Hiranyakshyap laughed like a devil but his laughter soon turned into shrieks when Lord Vishnu in the form of Narasimha (half lion, half human) came out from the pillar. Narasimha caught Hiranyakshyap at the doorstep and killed him with his big and sharp nails. When he died, it was dusk (neither day nor night), doorstep (neither inside nor outside), in the lap (neither land nor water or air), killed by claws (neither Astra nor Shastra) and by Narasimha (neither human nor animal). The significance of this story is that the demon, in the form of the vices (lust, anger, ego, attachment, greed and jealousy), is destroyed only at the auspicious confluence age, which is neither the Iron Age (kaliyuga) nor the golden age (satyuga). A day before Holi, lots of wooden sticks are gathered in the ground, and are worshiped. A thread is tied around a small piece of bread and placed on the fire. It is believed that even though the bread burns, the thread remains clean. This is a memorial of how the evil (the bread) is destroyed, while the thread (the soul ) is eternal.

References: https://www.speakingtree.in/allslides/holika-dahan-story/247396