When was gujarat formed

Gujarat has two temples dedicated to two most popular mother goddesses of Gujarat, Amba Mata and Becharji Mata. On Kartika and Chaitra Purnima days and during the Navaratri days, people visit these temples and enjoy Gujarati's typical folk drama, the Bhavai. Asvina is a month which marks the end of the harvesting season. This month ends with Diwali which is a four-day festival. The first day of the festival starts with the Laxmi Puja. The second day is considered as the day of the casting off evils.

The third day is the main Diwali day. On this day every home is illuminated and decorated. The fourth and the last day is the New year day for the Gujarati's when people visit temples in colourful costumes and greet each other.

The day following the new year day is called the Bhai bij day when brothers are invited by their sisters to partake of sweets with them. The full moon day of the Kartika month, with its preceding eleventh ekadashi day is called the Dev-Diwali.

On these days the marriage of the Tulsi plant with the Shaligram, symbolising Lord Vishnu, is celebrated in every Hindu home in Gujarat. It also marks the termination of the Chaturmans fast , observance of four months of rainy season, during which Hindus, mostly ladies, miss a meal on every Ekadashi day and the ascetics do not move about.

Kite Festival, another festival in Gujarat is observed on the 14th of January, the day when the sun enters the tropic of cancer. On this day young boys and girls and even the old people, are on their house tops flying kites. This is really a national festival for Gujarat. Like the Diwali, the spring festival of Holi on the full moon day in the month of Phalguna has a universal appeal.

While Diwali marks the end of the monsoon and therefore the agricultural season of the Kharif crop, the Holi festival marks the agricultural season of theRabi crop. During the entire periodbetween June and October, when most of the countryside is engaged in agriculture,the festivals are mostly days of austerity, Penance and fasting.

No festival except the Balev, when Brahmins change their sacred threads, is exclusiveto any particular community or section. Even on the Balev, sisters tie Rakhi on theirbrother's wristwishing them happy life. Gujarat also celebrates festivals like the Ramnavami, the Sivaratri and the Mahavir Jayanyti. Muslims in Gujarat have their festivals, such as the Moharrum, the prophet's day and the Id days. SimilarlyParsis celebrate their New Year dayPateti.

Gujarat is very rich in animal life. The localised forest areas of the Gir in Saurashtra, Panchmahals and Dangs are having hordes of gazelles and antelopes. The Asiatic lion is now localised in the Gir forest, which has also smaller mammals including languor's and blue bulls. Gujarat having an extensive coastline, perennial rivers and lakes and ponds are rich in a variety of fish. Besides Asiatic lion, tiger, panther and cheetah, the wolf, jackal and fox are also found in the forest areas of the state.

Civets, the grayish languor, rabbits and porcupines are some other animals found there. The wild ass is a distinctive species found only in Gujarat, in the Rann of Kutch. The black buck in herds and the spotted deer are among the antelopes found in Gujarat.

The thick forests of Dangs, receiving maximum rains and having abundant greenery, are the home of beautiful birds such as Trogon, hornbills, barbets, babblers, racket-tailed drongos and minivets.

The sarus, pea-fowls, red-wattled lapwings, parakeets, babblers and mynas are mostly found in the plains. The extensive coastal regions of the state give shelter to a number of birds such as plovers, stints, sandi pipers, curlews, lesser flamingoes, terns and gulls. During the winter, flocks of migratory birds come down to Gujarat from faraway countries, some of which have their habitat in Siberia. The great and the little Rann of Kutch, when filled with water during favourable monsoon,serve as breeding ground for flamingoes, pelicans and avocets.

While drier areas of Kutch and north Gujarat serve as haunts to gray partridges, larks, white-eared bulbuls, finch larks and sand-grouses. The pied-crested cuckoo, migrating from East Africa comes to Gujarat a little ahead of monsoon. Among the birds coming to Gujarat in winter from the north can be included the rosy pelicans, white storks, brahmany duck, which breed in Tibet, demoiselle, common cranes, other varieties of ducks, coots, snipes, moorhens, curlews and stints.

The natural vegetation of the state is restricted to areas which receive adequate rainfall and are at the same time agriculturally unproductive. Gujarat has about These forests are not evergreen and shed their leaves during March and April, through the under-wood and shrub cover are fairly green. Teak is an important species, which drops its leaves only in the cold weather in localities, which are relatively dry or cold, but is almost evergreen in the moistest parts of its distribution.

Teak needs a moderately good rainfall and a well-drained terrain. The associates of teak in the moist deciduous forests are Terminalia tomestosa and Anogeissus latifolia. There are mixed growths of trees, which are deciduous during the dry season. The lower canopy in these forests is also deciduous with occasional evergreen or sub greens being present in the moister area. There is undergrowth of shrubs, but the light reaches the surface allowing the growth of grass which, occasionally develops into a savanna-type grass field.

Bamboos are not luxuriant. Other trees of the dry deciduous forests are teak, Boswellia serrata, Anogeissus latifolia and Diospyros malanoxylon.

Dry deciduous forests with teak occur in north-east Gujarat, particularly in Sabarkantha district. The forests of Junagadh are valuable for their yield of timber and of grass growing on their outer margin. With the decreasing rainfall in the drier north the forests turn thorny and tend to assume a xerophytic character. Such forests occurring either in Kutch or north Saurashtra and Banaskantha district are characterised by Acacia arabica, Acacia leucophloea, Capparis ophylla, Zizyphus mauratiana etc.

The thorny forests of north Gujarat are sparse and provide sites for cattle-grazing. There are bamboo plantations but there are virtually no trees that can yield timber. The most common variety of Bamboo is Dendorocalamus.

The most luxuriant bamboo occur in the interior of the Dangs forests. The density is guided essentially by rainfall. There are larges stands of bamboo in South Gujarat than in the North. Gujarat has a very rich heritage of art crafts. The Patola of Patan is a unique fabric of Gujarat.

This special variety of women's wear is strikingly attractive with its colourful geometricalpatterns. This lovely silken fabric, which resembles a printed sari is not an apparelprinted by blocks.

Its tie and weave method resulting in identical patterns on both sides of the fabric, involving complicated calculations, is entirely based on the geometry of the design.

The process consists of dyeing the warp and the weft threads in conformity with the proposed design on the fabric.

Hand-wovenand silk yarn is used for weaving. The process is both costly andtime consuming and the market islimited with the result that the families doing this work are fast dwindling.

The Jari industry of Surat is one of the oldest handicrafts whose origin can be traced to the Mughal period. Surat is one of the biggest and important Jari manufacturing centres in India. The principal types of products are real gold and silver threads, imitation goldand silver threads, embroidery such as the Chalak, the Salama, the Kangari, the Tiki, mainly the Ring and the Katori for motifying in the Kinkhab cloth of gold and the Jari border weaving, embroidery, laces, caps, turbans, saris, and blouse pieces.

The Tanchoi or silk brocade is woven on silk cloth is decorated with the designs of birds, animals, leaves, fruits etc. The cloth is used for costly saris, blouses and tapestry. The Kinkhab or the Indian brocade is woven on the silkwith gold and silver threads. Dyeing is a hereditary art. In the past cloth was dyed in colours extracted from trees and flowers. The Sarkhei suburb of Ahmedabad was one of the indigo manufacturing and exporting centres. The Bandhani, tie and dye variety of sari is a very popular women's wear.

It involves an intricate process of tying knots on the fine white fabrics, which are dipped in colours. The hues of deeper shades are used over the previous ones to form the coloured back ground of the cloth. Cloth printing is a complicated and specialised job. Gujarat also played a significant role in the commerce of Mumbai and Karachi during the British Raj.

The primary agricultural products of the state include groundnuts, sugarcane, cotton and milk products. The proposal was made in a conference during the Gujarat Sahitya Sabha which was organised in the city Karachi in the year Read all the Latest News and Breaking News here. Jai Jai Garvi Gujarat! The Bombay State formed under this act was inhabited by Marathi,. Gujarati, Kutchi and Konkani-speaking people. The Sanyukta Maharashtra Samiti wanted the Bombay State to be divided into two states — one where people primarily spoke Gujarati and Kutchhi and the other where people primarily spoke Marathi and Konkani.

A simultaneous political movement known as Mahagujarat Andolan sought the creation of the state of Gujarat for Gujarati and Kutchhi-speaking people. Some college students even lost their lives in police firing at the local Congress House in Ahmedabad during a protest in favour of the Gujarat state.