A western keynote speaker at a recent Hindu cultural event was seen having a hard time pronouncing vijaya dashami. The chief guest was heard saying vijayA damAshi, and hoped that was close, and the next time it was vijamA dashamy, again off-track. If someone had just wrote it down as decemi, instead of dashami, it would have been close indeed. For, December is all too familiar for the west, though only a few may recall December was actually the 10th month in the calendar, before Romans introduced January and February. dasham means the 10th (day, in this case) — same as the root for Decem.
The Sanskrit words saptham, ashtam, navam and dasham map to Septem-ber, Octo-ber, Novem-ber and Decem-ber. Incidentally, November used to be the 9th month, and is a useful hint for pronouncing nava-rathri (9-night) the 9-day festival (or more precisely 9-nights!) that precedes vijaya dashami.
Pronouncing vijaya has not been difficult with non-native speakers. Vijay is a familiar name in most workplaces, pronounced easily as VJ in two syllables. Jaya is also familiar along similar lines, so vijaya is not that hard — it just got complicated when the speaker saw vijaya dashami!
vijaya means victory, in the sense of win-lose, as with the outcome of a battle. On vijaya dashami, the 10th day of victory, someone won and someone lost. This is the victory of virtue over vice, metaphorically the battle of Rama vs. Ravana in the Ramayana epic, and interestingly, the speaker did mention this celebration as victory of dharma over adharma, justice over injustice, or good over evil! We can count at least 10 vices, such as anger, ego, lust, and for this reason Ravana is described as dasha mukha or 10-faced. The speaker mentioned Happy Dussehra, another greeting widely used at this time as well — Dussehra is dasha hara, or defeating these 10-vices!
jaya, on the other hand, means win-win. A typical example is sharing knowledge — the student clearly gains, but the teacher doesn’t lose, and probably gained more learning and experience as well. Jaya and Vijaya are gate-keepers to Vishnu, the Hindu deity symbolizing protection of dharma. Justice in this world is indeed served by win-win and win-lose!
Any case, writing as vijaya decemi could be a win-win, in my opinion!
