Indra Jatra

Indra Jatra, known in the Newar language as Yenya ("festival of the inner city") or Yenya Punhi, is the largest religious street festival of Kathmandu. Tradition credits its founding to King Gunakamadeva, who is said to have instituted the celebration to mark the founding of the city and to honour Indra, the Vedic king of heaven and bringer of rain. The festival's full modern form, and especially the chariot procession of the Living Goddess Kumari, was established much later, in 1756 CE, during the reign of Jaya Prakash Malla, the last Malla king of Kathmandu. The combined event therefore unites two strands: the older Indra Jatra honouring the rain god, and the Kumari Jatra centred on the valley's living goddess.

The festival's central legend explains why Indra, the lord of the heavens, is celebrated as a captured thief. According to the myth, Indra descended to the Kathmandu Valley in the disguise of an ordinary farmer to gather parijat (the night-flowering jasmine) that his mother Basundhara required for a ritual in heaven. Caught plucking the flowers near Maru, the local people mistook him for a common thief and bound and imprisoned him, displaying him with his hands tied. When Indra failed to return, his mother came down to earth searching the city for her lost son; this search is re-enacted in the festival's Dagin procession. On recognising that their prisoner was the king of heaven, the citizens released him, and in gratitude Indra's mother promised mist and dew through the winter months to nourish the valley's crops, and pledged to take the souls of the recently deceased to heaven. The display of a bound-handed image of Indra (Indraraj Dyah) on raised platforms at Maru and Indra Chok recalls this captivity.

The eight days of Yenya run, in the lunar Nepal Era calendar, from the 12th day of the bright fortnight through the 4th day of the dark fortnight of the month of Yanla, so the Gregorian dates shift each year (typically late August to mid-September). The festivities open with Yosin Thanegu, the raising of the Yosin or lingo, a tall ceremonial pole from which the banner of Indra is unfurled at Kathmandu Durbar Square in front of the old royal palace, Hanuman Dhoka. The pole is a single tall tree, shorn of branches and bark, traditionally brought from a forest near the town of Nala, east of Kathmandu, and its erection formally begins the festival. On the opening day the rite of Upaku Wanegu sees families walk a circuit of shrines carrying lighted incense and butter lamps in memory of relatives who died during the preceding year, some singing hymns along the route.

The most famous component is the Kumari Jatra, the three days of chariot processions. Three towering wooden chariots carrying human embodiments of Ganesh, Bhairab and the Living Goddess Kumari are pulled through the old city accompanied by musical bands, usually setting out in the afternoon. On the first day, Kwaneya, the chariots are drawn through the southern part of the city; the second day falls on the full moon, Yenya Punhi, when the procession Thaneya travels the northern districts as far as Asan; and the third day, Nanichaya, takes the central route around Kilagal. Since 2012 the Kumari's chariot has been pulled by an all-women team on the third day, breaking a centuries-old tradition. Around these processions come the masked dances and tableaux. Throughout the eight days, huge masks of Bhairab are displayed publicly, the foremost being Sweta (White) Bhairava at Durbar Square and Akash Bhairava at Indra Chok; on certain days a pipe projecting from the mouth of Sweta Bhairava dispenses rice beer (thwon/jaad) and liquor to the crowd, and devotees press forward to drink the blessed flow. The festival closes with Yosin Kwathalegu, the lowering of the lingo pole at Durbar Square, which formally ends Yenya.

Indra Jatra is celebrated above all in the streets, through masked dance-dramas (pyakhan) that bring the valley's deities and demons to life. The best known is the Majipa Lakhey, the dance of a fierce red-faced, mane-haired demon who, with his retinue of drummers, leaps and whirls through the lanes; alongside the Pulukisi, a man-borne wicker effigy of Indra's white elephant Airavata that careers through the crowds searching for its captured master, the Lakhey also helps clear and excite the throng before the chariots pass. Other troupes include Sawa Bhakku, a blue-masked form of Bhairab attended by figures in red; the Dee Pyakhan or Devi dances featuring masks of Bhairav, Kumari, Chandi, Daitya and the impish Khyah; and the Mahakali Pyakhan brought from Bhaktapur, which includes the comic, hairy, ape-like Khyah performing acrobatics.

Several processions and displays add to the spectacle. The Dagin procession re-enacts Indra's mother wandering the city in search of her son and follows the Kumari's chariot back from the southern route. The Bau Mata is a long holy-snake effigy built from reeds and studded with oil lamps, carried by members of the Manandhar (oil-presser) community. Bahidya boyegu, the display of sacred images, sees rarely seen god-figures brought out for public viewing across the city, while Mata Biye is the offering of rows of butter lamps. Together these elements turn the historic heart of Kathmandu — Durbar Square, Indra Chok, Maru, Kilagal and Asan — into an open-air stage of dance, light and devotion for the duration of the festival.

The defining festival food of Yenya is samay baji, the ceremonial Newar platter offered to the gods and shared among the community. Built around chiura (beaten or flattened rice), a samay baji set typically includes roasted black soybeans, slivers of fresh ginger, spiced potato or green vegetables, fried egg, dried fish and woh (wo/bara, a savoury lentil patty), often accompanied by marinated and grilled buffalo meat such as choila. Each element carries symbolic meaning in the valley's syncretic tradition; some Buddhist accounts associate the components with the five Tathagata buddhas, with the beaten rice itself regarded as a purifying food that crosses ritual boundaries. The platter is set out with small clay cups of local alcoholic drinks — aila (a clear distilled spirit) and thwon or jaad (the milky, tart rice beer also called chhyang) — which are central to the festival's offerings.

Beyond the home plate, food and drink are woven into the public rituals. The rice beer and liquor that flow from the mouth-spout of the Sweta Bhairav mask are received as prasad, a blessing literally drunk from the god, and large communal displays of samay baji are mounted both as offerings and as sustenance for the crowds and chariot-pullers. The festival is also a time of family feasting among Newar Hindus and Buddhists, with relatives gathering for meals. Drink, in the form of thwon and aila, is treated not as mere refreshment but as a sacramental part of honouring Bhairab, Indra and the ancestors remembered during the rites.

Indra Jatra fuses agricultural thanksgiving, ancestor remembrance and political ritual. As a harvest-season festival it gives thanks to Indra for the monsoon rains and marks the close of the wet season, while the Upaku Wanegu rites honour the year's dead in keeping with the legend that Indra's mother promised to carry departed souls to heaven. Its most consequential dimension is political: the Kumari Jatra introduced by Jaya Prakash Malla bound the Hindu Malla state to the valley's Buddhist communities through the worship of a Shakya girl as a living goddess. By long tradition the head of state receives a tika from the Kumari during the festival, a blessing understood to legitimise temporal authority through divine endorsement.

This bond is illustrated by a famous historical episode. When Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha conquered Kathmandu, he is said to have entered the city on the very day of Indra Jatra in 1768 and received the Kumari's tika, which was taken to confirm him as the rightful king of Kantipur — so the conqueror preserved his rival's festival rather than abolish it. Through the Shah monarchy the reigning king attended the chariot festival and received the goddess's blessing; since the abolition of the monarchy in 2008 the President of Nepal has taken up that ceremonial role.

Today Indra Jatra remains the great public festival of Kathmandu, observed chiefly by the Newar community of the Kathmandu Valley but drawing huge crowds of Nepalis and visitors to Durbar Square and the surrounding old city. It is celebrated as the area's most important living tradition and as a defining expression of Newar cultural identity, with the historic core of Kathmandu — itself part of the Kathmandu Valley UNESCO World Heritage property — serving as its stage. Related observances of Indra Puja are held in parts of the Terai with their own local variations, while in the valley the festival continues largely as it has for centuries, interrupted only by events such as the 2020 COVID-19 restrictions on its public processions.