Navaratri — "nine nights" — is among the most widely kept festivals of the Hindu year, dedicated to the Goddess in her many forms. Its inner structure is the worship of the Navadurga, the nine manifestations of Durga, traditionally honoured one per night and named in a verse recited across the festival: Shailaputri (daughter of the mountain), Brahmacharini (the ascetic), Chandraghanta (bearing the moon like a bell), Kushmanda (whose smile birthed the cosmic egg), Skandamata (mother of Skanda), Katyayani (the warrior born to slay Mahishasura), Kalaratri (the dark night that destroys fear), Mahagauri (the radiant pure one), and Siddhidatri (giver of perfection and spiritual powers). The sequence is a journey — from the gentle to the fierce and back to grace — a portrait of the Goddess in her fullness.

The nine nights culminate in the tenth day, Vijayadashami or Dussehra, "the victorious tenth," celebrating the triumph of good over evil — of Durga over Mahishasura, and in many regions of Rama over Ravana, whose effigies are burned at sunset.

What makes Navaratri remarkable is how a single sacred season blossoms into utterly distinct regional festivals, each fully itself. In Bengal and much of eastern India, the festival is Durga Puja: magnificent clay images of the ten-armed goddess slaying the buffalo demon are installed in elaborate temporary pavilions (pandals), worshipped over the final days, and at last carried in joyous, tearful processions to be immersed in the river — the Mother returning to her home in the mountains, having visited her devotees as a daughter comes home for the holidays.

In Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra, homes display the Golu (or Bommai Kolu) — tiered steps arrayed with dolls and figurines of gods, saints, and scenes of daily life. Women and children visit from house to house, exchanging gifts and sweets, and the three triads of days are often dedicated to Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati in turn.

In Gujarat, the nights belong to dance: Garba, danced in circles around a lamp-bearing earthen pot (the garbo, symbol of the womb and the cosmos), and the stick-dance Dandiya Raas, communities turning together late into the night.

Elsewhere there are still other emphases — the royal Mysuru Dasara of Karnataka, the planting of barley seeds whose green shoots forecast the year's fortune, the Ayudha Puja honouring tools and books, and the Ramlila dramas of the north. One festival, one Goddess — and a hundred ways for a vast land to welcome the Mother.