Miscellaneous Events [3-7]

The lunar year contains many individual events of varying importance that are thematically independent units, in contrast, for example, to the

thematic integration of Swanti. Their patterning and relations with other events in the cycle, if any, involves more abstractly structured relations, which we will consider in the appropriate places.

Jugari Na:Mi [3]

The ninth day of the bright fortnight Kachalathwa is in October/ November. This is an event in commemoration of Visnu-Narayana's^[*] victory—in the form of his avatar Vamana—over an Asura king. It is a time for a pilgrimage to shrines of Visnu^[*] , ideally to the four major shrines of Visnu^[*] in the Kathmandu Valley, although this is now limited to a visit to one of them and often, even more conveniently, to one of the two major Visnu^[*] temples within Bhaktapur. The visits may be made by a group of family members or by one person representing the family. This special day is in the context of two fortnights (Kachalaga and Kachalathwa) specially dedicated to Visnu^[*] . During this period, people who wish to may worship him daily at one of the Visnu^[*] temples.

People who go to the valley shrines of Visnu^[*] do this along with non-Newar Nepalese, joining them in a mela . In keeping with the theme of Vamana's outwitting of the Asura, people may pray at the shrine for protection against demons, evil spirits, earthquakes, destructive rains, and the like—the nonmoral dangers that are, in the system most properly centered on and localized to Bhaktapur, the concern of the dangerous deities. From the perspective of Bhaktapur's civic religion this is an event of moderate importance.

Hari Bodhini [4]

This, like Jugari Na:mi, which it follows by two days, is a valley-wide festival dedicated to Visnu^[*] , celebrated in visits to his four Kathmandu Valley shrines. This day commemorates Visnu's^[*] awakening after his four-month cosmic sleep, and is celebrated throughout South Asia. It is the last day of the four-month Caturmasa Vrata (see section entitled "Ya Marhi Punhi [9]"). The Valley's activities are described in some detail by Mary Anderson (1971, chap. 20). Thousands of people from Bhaktapur usually participate in these pilgrimages, as they participate in mela s in general, for the fair-like excitement of the event. The visit is given a less frivolous justification as a fulfillment of some pledge to Visnu^[*] , or in order to gain some religious merit.

Gaborieau (1982) has, as we have noted, argued that for the Indo-Nepalese, Hari Bodhini and the waking of Visnu^[*] marks the end of the four-month inauspicious period in which ordinary time is mythically held in abeyance. We will return to this suggestion in chapter 16, but may note here that, in contrast with other events, it is of no internal significance to Bhaktapur, and does not mark any immediate shift in festival events. (Moderate.)^[l0]

Saki Mana Punhi [5]

The day and night of all full-moon days or punhi s, that is, the last day of the bright fortnight, is the regular monthly occasion for special activities in Bhaktapur. Some individual full-moon days are differentiated in some way, as are some other monthly occasions—such as the new-moon day, the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight, and the first day of the solar month.^[11] Only some of these specially named punhi s are listed in the written annual calendars; some are specially noted only because they precede an important calendrical event in the following fortnight. It is often arbitrary as to whether such relatively insignificant differentiated days should be considered as a special annual event. We have listed only those specially named full-moon days that seem associated with some activity or symbolism of more than routine differentiated importance. One of these is Saki Mana Punhi. "Saki mana" refers to the edible boiled root of a certain flower. Participation in the associated events of the day is optional. There are groups of men who go on the evening of all punhi s to various temples to play music as a religious offering. On this particular punhi evening they bring mixed grain and uncooked beans to the particular temple where they customarily play and construct an elaborate picture of the temple out of the grain and beans. This is the last day of the two fortnights dedicated to Visnu/Narayana^[*] . Many people go from one shrine and temple to another, listening to music and inspecting the pictures, but the two major Narayana^[*] temples are particular foci for visits and offerings. As this is a punhi evening, people also worship the moon at home, as they do on all punhi s. After the Visnu^[*] and moon puja s many households eat special foods—as they do on many calendrical occasions. On this day it is saki mana , the boiled root that gives the punhi its name, and sweet potatoes. On this day, in which the household is emphasized as well as the benign deity Visnu^[*] and the astral deity, the moon, there is a parallel participation of

households, not only in similar pujas , but in the eating of the same food. The movement out of the household is in a stroll to various nearby temples, which individuals, household groups, and close friends may decide to visit. There is no larger interactional civic form given to the day's events. (Moderate.)

Gopinatha Jatra [6]

This event is the first in the bright fortnight Kachalaga in November. While many calendrical events are associated with movement of people to one or another temple or pilgrimage site in a more or less haphazard manner some calendrical events are characterized by systematic and formalized movements through some unit of space. Sometimes a deity is moved through space, sometimes and more rarely devotees move to a temple or shrine, or to a series of them, in some prescribed order. Both the carrying of the deity and the more formalized movements of worshipers through the city is called, as it is elsewhere in South Asia, a jatra (from the Sanskrit, yatra , "journey, festive train, procession, pilgrimage"). These processions—most typically lead by special jatra images^[12] of the focal deity carried in the arms of a priest or in a palanquin, or sometimes in an enormous chariot—move over prescribed routes. The route is often the main festival route of the city, the pradaksinapatha^[*] , but for many festivals it is one of the less extensive routes within some other significant unit of the city (chap. 7). The paths by which the image and the major participants move from a temple to join the festival route are themselves conventionally prescribed. It should be noted that the extensiveness of the jatra route is no necessary indication of the importance of the festival. Minor jatras may follow the main pradaksinapatha^[*] , while important ones that become foci of interest for the entire city may occasionally move only through a local area.

Gopinatha Jatra is an example of a minor jatra that follows the main city route. "Gopinatha" is an appellation of Krsna^[*] . The organization of the procession is the responsibility of the temple priest, the pujari , of the Krsna^[*] temple in Laeku Square. Some men of the Jyapu Rajcal (also called "Kala") thar , members of families that had been granted tenancy of land in exchange for this service, accompany the image playing flutes, drums, and cymbals. Observers are usually casual bypassers who often must ask who the deity being carried is. Bypassers often give coins as offerings to the deity, and the members of the procession give them flowers as prasada in return. (Minor.)

Bala, Ca:Re [7]

Ca:re , the fourteenth day of the dark lunar fortnight, is always special to the Dangerous Goddess. On this particular ca:re members of families who have lost someone through death during the year join other Nepalese at the great Valley shrine and temple complex of Pasupatinatha (Anderson 1971, chap. 24). The various procedures on the day—bathing, visits to temples of Siva, Bhairava, and the goddess (at her Devi pitha as Guhyesvari), all associated with various traditional and local tales—are interpreted as protecting the dead person from trouble in the afterlife of the first year, and as aiding his or her entrance into heaven.^[13] Most people in Bhaktapur who have had a bereavement during the previous year try to join in this pilgrimage, which is a kind of mela . Those people who are unable to go to Pasupatinatha on that day may go to the equivalent temples and shrines of the "royal center" (see chap. 8, section entitled "Pilgrimage Gods of the Royal Center") on Bhaktapur's Laeku Square. This is one of the days within the lunar year with a central or secondary reference to "normal" death.

On Bala Ca:re a member of the Jugi thar begins to perform in Bhaktapur as Mahadeva, Siva as the "great god," performances that will continue until the beginning of the solar New Year sequence [20].

The day's major event concerns only some of Bhaktapur's people in any given year, but through their lifetimes as they become bereaved most people will take part in it. (Moderate.)