Diwali 2025: The festival of Diwali is celebrated with great pomp and joy across the country. On this festival day, people worship Goddess Lakshmi and Lord Ganesha in their homes. At the same time, there is a village in India where mourning is celebrated on the day of Diwali. This village is Melukote (Melukote) of Karnataka. This village mourns and mourns the death of its ancestors on this day. So let us know about this 235 year old custom and tradition of Melukote village of Karnataka.
Tipu Sultan is related to tradition
Melukote village of Karnataka is 100 km from Bengaluru. Is located at a distance. It is said that Diwali People of Iyengar Brahmin community do not celebrate the festival of Iyengar. According to the people of Melkot village, on the day of Diwali, Tipu Sultan had killed 700 Brahmins. He was the ancestor of all Brahmin Iyengar community members. According to the villagers, Tipu Sultan had got those Brahmins killed due to some personal enmity. For this reason the people of this village also hate Tipu Sultan. For this reason the people of this village celebrate Diwali as ‘Black Diwali’.
Why did Tipu Sultan kill Brahmins?
According to historians, the Mandyam Iyengar community, which is associated with the Vaishnav Brahmin tradition, does not celebrate Diwali even today. The reason behind this is related to a historical incident which left a deep wound on the memories of the entire community. It is said that during the reign of Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan, a queen named ‘Lakshmi Amma’ was under house arrest. He was allowed to go to the temple and worship only for one hour every day. In the same puja, she used to secretly send hidden messages to Madras and Pune. The work of delivering these messages was done by two people – Tirumal Rao and Narayana Rao, who were from the Mandyam Iyengar community. When Tipu Sultan came to know about this, he tried to catch both of them, but they escaped every time.
It is said that in this anger, Tipu Sultan, a day before Diwali, called about 700 men, women and children of the Mandyam Iyengar community on the pretext of a ‘Friends Banquet’. As soon as people sat down to eat, the doors of the temple were closed and the elephants were left inside. Almost everyone present there was killed. After this incident, Mandyam Iyengar community started observing that day as Shraddha and mourning day.
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