Dashain

Fifteen days and one blessing

Dashain is the longest and most widely kept festival in Nepal. It follows the bright fortnight of the month of Ashwin and celebrates the goddess Durga's victory over the buffalo demon Mahishasura — good over evil, told as a war that took nine nights.

It opens at Ghatasthapana, when barley seeds are sown in a pot of earth and river sand, the kalash, in a room kept dark and quiet. The shoots that come up over the fortnight are the jamara, the pale yellow grass that is given with the tika on the tenth day. On the seventh, Phulpati, a procession brings flowers and offerings from Gorkha, the old royal seat, to the capital. The eighth and ninth, Maha Ashtami and Maha Navami, are the days of sacrifice: thousands of buffalo, goats, ducks and rams are killed at temples across the country, and workshops and drivers offer blood and flowers to their tools and vehicles for a safe year. The practice is argued about in Nepal itself, and animal-welfare campaigners have pressed for pumpkins and coconuts in place of animals.

The tenth day

On Vijaya Dashami the households gather and the elders mark the young: red tika on the forehead, jamara set above the ear, a blessing said, and dakshina, a small gift of money. It is received in person, which is why the country moves. People who work in the cities or abroad travel to the house they come from, and the roads and the buses are full for days in both directions.

Around it the fortnight is lighter than the word "festival" suggests. Kites go up over the valley. Bamboo swings, linge ping, are built at the edge of villages and stand for the fortnight. New clothes are bought, cards are played, and families eat better than they do all year. The fifteen days close at Kojagrat Purnima, the full moon on which Lakshmi is said to go about asking who is still awake.

When it happens

The dates follow the lunar tithi, not a fixed day in our calendar, and the government publishes them for each Bikram Sambat year. In 2026 Ghatasthapana falls on Sunday 11 October, Phulpati on Saturday 17 October, Maha Ashtami on Sunday 18 October, Maha Navami on Tuesday 20 October, and Vijaya Dashami on Wednesday 21 October.