Festivals of Thankot and Chandragiri: the Nepali Year, Month by Month

Nepal runs on the Bikram Sambat calendar, which is roughly 56 years and 8 months ahead of the Gregorian one and starts its year in mid-April. Its months, Baisakh through Chaitra, are solar, but the festivals inside them are fixed by tithi, a lunar day. A tithi is the time the moon takes to gain twelve degrees on the sun, which is not a fixed number of hours, so tithis drift against solar days and festivals drift against the Gregorian calendar by up to several weeks from year to year.

The practical consequence for a visitor is simple. Anyone who tells you that Nepali Mother's Day is on a particular Gregorian date every year is wrong. What is stable is the Nepali month and the tithi: Matatirtha Aunsi is always the new moon of Baisakh, Maha Shivaratri is always the fourteenth of the dark fortnight of Falgun, and the Mahalaxmi Jatra always opens on Kartik Shukla Chaturdashi. Every page in this section gives the tithi first and the Gregorian window second, in that order, deliberately.

Two further wrinkles catch people out. First, some tithis are skipped or repeated in a given lunar month, which is why a festival occasionally appears to jump a day relative to what you expected. Second, the authoritative determination is made by the Nepali panchanga, the astronomical almanac, and published for the year; for a local jatra the temple guthi, the hereditary trust that funds and runs it, confirms the working dates. If a trip depends on being present, ask the temple committee or the municipality directly.

Thankot's festival year makes more sense once you know that two communities keep it side by side. The old bazaar has a long Newar settlement history, visible in the carved window frames and in the guthi structure that still funds the Mahalaxmi Jatra. Newar practice supplies the shoulder-borne khat palanquins, the dhime drum and bhusya cymbals that set the pace of a procession, the masked dance troupes, and Mha Puja, the worship of the self on the fourth day of Tihar, which is also Newar New Year.

Alongside it, the Parbatiya hill tradition supplies the panche baja, the five-instrument ensemble of shawms, trumpets, kettledrums and cymbals that accompanies auspicious processions across the hills, and the shape of Dashain as it is kept in most households here. Neither tradition displaced the other. On procession day at the Mahalaxmi Jatra you will hear both ensembles taking the route in turns, which is a fair summary of how the settlement works.

You can read how that mixed settlement came about in our chronicles of Thankot, from the Shonitapur legend through the Malla-period Newar bazaar to the Gorkhali unification, which is the point at which the hill tradition arrives in force.

For a street spectacle, the Mahalaxmi Jatra in Kartik. It is a public event, there is no ticket, and the vermilion procession on the third day is the single most photographed thing that happens in Thankot. Wear clothes you are willing to lose.

For something quiet and unusual, Matatirtha Aunsi on the Baisakh new moon. Be aware of what you are attending: for many people at the pond it is a day of open grief for a mother who has died, and it should be approached with that in mind rather than as a photo opportunity.

For lights and architecture, Tihar in Kartik. The old bazaar lanes are lined with oil lamps, doorways are painted, and Deusi and Bhailo singing groups work the settlement after dark. It is far less crowded than the equivalent in Patan or Bhaktapur.

For a night on the ridge, Maha Shivaratri at Bhaleshwor Mahadev in Falgun. February air over the valley is the clearest of the year, and the summit shrine keeps an all-night vigil at 2,551 m. Bring a real jacket.

Avoid arriving as a first-time sightseer in the middle of Dashain unless you have local hosts. The bazaar is shut, the highway west is the worst it gets all year, and the temples are too crowded to look at properly. Our seasonal guide sets out the trade-offs month by month.

• Do not cross in front of a procession. Bearers carrying a khat cannot see well and cannot stop.
• Ask before photographing an individual, particularly anyone performing a rite or grieving. Wide crowd shots are fine.
• Remove shoes where others do, at shrine platforms and inner compounds.
• Walk clockwise around a shrine or stupa, and do not touch offerings.
• Accept prasad with your right hand. Refusing food returned from an offering reads as a rebuff.
• Dress modestly. Covered shoulders and knees at temple sites, whatever the weather.
• Carry small notes. Offerings, Deusi groups and hill fairs all run on cash, and change is scarce.
• Take your rubbish with you. Wrappers from festival offerings are the biggest problem at every site listed here.

Every festival on this page has the same margin: food stalls, bangle sellers, and card and dice tables. The dice game is Langur Burja, six dice marked with six symbols, played on a printed cloth with a banker taking bets, and it is tolerated during the Dashain and Tihar season in a way it is not the rest of the year. It is worth understanding the maths before you sit down, because the payout structure is built to favour the house.

The other traditional game you will see, usually played quietly on a shop step rather than at a stall, is Bagh Chal, the tigers and goats board game that is Nepal's national game. Both are playable free on this site, and both have full rules pages under traditional games.