Bisket Jatra

The princess and the serpents

The story Bhaktapur tells is of a princess whose bridegrooms kept dying in the night. A young man, advised by a goddess, stayed awake to watch, and saw two serpents come out of the sleeping princess's nostrils; he cut them down with his sword. The festival is said to begin with him displaying the two dead serpents — and the long streamers on the Yosin pole are read as those serpents to this day.

Two chariots and a pole

The centre of the festival is at Taumadhi Square, where the chariot of Bhairava — a heavy, tiered thing on solid wheels — is brought out with the smaller chariot of the goddess Bhadrakali. The men of the upper town and the men of the lower town take the ropes at opposite ends and pull against each other; the half that wins takes the chariot to its own quarter. The chariots are hauled through the city over several days and end back at the temple.

At Yosin Khyo, at the lower end of the town, a tall wooden pole is raised with the serpent banners hanging from it. On the last evening of the old year it is pulled down. The year begins when it hits the ground.

The neighbouring towns keep their own days in the same week: Thimi throws vermilion powder over the palanquins of its gods in the morning of the new year, and at Bode a man walks through the town with an iron spike through his tongue, carrying torches on a rack on his shoulders.

When it happens

Nepal's official year, Bikram Sambat, begins on the first day of Baisakh, which falls on 13 or 14 April in our calendar. Bisket Jatra straddles it — roughly four days before and four days after — so unlike Dashain and Tihar it comes back to almost the same dates every year. The exact programme, day by day, is announced in Bhaktapur in the weeks before.