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Thimithi Festival is Coming in October Month Every Year.

The Thimithi Festival or the Fire walking Festival in Singapore is another major Hindu festival celebrated by the Hindus during the month of October. This festival takes place in order to venerate and honor goddess Draupadi. Legend says that Draupadi was made to walk on burning coals barefoot, without any expressions of pain, in order to prove her fidelity to her husband. To commemorate this painful event and respect the courage of the goddess, the Thimithi festival includes the bizarre event of fire walking. Thus it is also called the fire walking festival or ceremony.

The Thimithi festival is the time for the Hindu priests and the devotees to demonstrate the devotion, valor and fortitude. They do so by walking across a 21 ft pit full of burning coals without showing any signs of pain. This is considered a test of purity as the Hindus devotees and priests believe that they will be burnt only if they are impure. After the fire walking is done, they walk through a pit of goat’s milk and blemish their feet with turmeric. To take part in the Thimithi Festival in the premises of the temples, one must make sure to be dressed properly without baring the knees or shoulders. Shoes should be kept outside at the gates.

Thimithi is held in the month of Aipasi, which is between the solar months of October and November. Celebrations begin at the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple in Little India around 2a.m. and a priest leads a grand procession through the streets to the Sri Mariamman Temple (of the rain goddess) where the Thimithi takes place. The fire walking usually begins around 4am and a priest is the first to brave the long pit of embers, followed by other devotees.
The ritual attracts several thousand participants and even more spectators, many of whom wait long hours to witness relatives or friends perform.
After walking over the hot coals, the devotees wade through a pit filled with goat’s milk, then rub their feet with yellow powdered turmeric. The result is that the ground around the area of the temple is stained with yellow.

Draupadi is a heroine of the epic poem Mahabharata, a princess whose husband lost her in a game of dice with his cousin, Duryodhana. Lord Krishna came to her rescue, but to add insult to injury her husband questioned her purity when she was returned, so to prove her innocence she walked across burning coals.
It is in honour of Draupadi’s courage that devotees subject themselves to a test of faith by walking barefoot across a four-metre red-hot coal pit. In defiance of the intense heat, firewalkers focus in deep concentration to complete the challenge miraculously unscathed. Fire walking is also regarded as a test of purity for Draupadi’s devotees. It is said that if a devotee is not pure, he or she will fail the test and be burnt.