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Chapter Thirteen The Events of the Lunar Year
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Events During the Period of Indra Jatra [59-65]: the Transformation of Festival Themes and Events in Different Newar Cities and Towns

From the twelfth day of Ya(n)lathwa to the fourth day of the following waning fortnight of Ya(n)laga is the eight-day period of Indra Jatra, which in some other Newar communities, most notably in Kathmandu, maintains aspects of an ancient Indian calendrical festival (V. S. Agrawala 1970, 55). In Kathmandu Indra Jatra is a thematically integrated sequence that is one of the focal festival events of that city's annual calendar. Each of the Newar cities and towns have one or more such festival events or sequences that are specially developed in the community and which attract people from other communities as spectators. Conversely, a festival cycle that is highly developed in one community appears, by contrast, to be relatively (and sometimes completely) ignored in another. Indra Jatra is an example of a festival that is comparatively ignored in Bhaktapur. The group of calendrical events that we are including together here as taking place during the span of Indra Jatra contain some events [59, 61, 65], which are clearly represented in Kathmandu as integrated by certain local legends about Indra, and are understood to be related to these stories by some people in Bhaktapur. For many or perhaps most people in Bhaktapur, however, they are simply independent events, of the same disconnected


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kind as the other miscellaneous calendrical events that happen to fall within these eight days.

The equivocally component days of the Indra Jatra (i.e., days that have thematic connections with the integrated sequence as it has been described for Kathmandu) are Yama Dya: Thanigu [59], Indrani[*] Jatra [61], Yau Dya: Punhi [62], and Pulu Kisi Haigu [65].

In Kathmandu Indra Jatra is a major eight-day festival consisting of a number of dramatic and climactic events. Some of these events in Kathmandu are related to a legend of Indra's personal relation to that city. Others center on the dangerous deity Akas Bhairava (represented by huge dramatic masks), on Bhagavati, on the living goddess Kumari, and on other comparatively minor supernatural figures (Nepali 1965, 358-369; Anderson 1971, chap. 15).

We have suggested that some of the similar events of this period in Bhaktapur are transformed in meaning because they are not put in the context of a major integrative festival. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that some of the elements in Kathmandu's focal Indra Jatra are moved in Bhaktapur to other times of the year and, for the most part, amalgamated into Bhaktapur's own major and focal festivals. Thus, for example, the Kathmandu Indra Jatra festival is inaugurated and ends with the raising and then, eight days later, lowering of a forty-foot pole, the trunk of a particular kind of tree. The same kind of tree, gathered in the same place by members of Bhaktapur's branch of the same thar (the Sa:mi), is erected and lowered as one of the central symbolic foci in Bhaktapur's Biska: festival. During Kathmandu's Indra Jatra a procession (associated there with a group of legends about Indra and "Indra's mother") for the salvation of those who had died during the previous years is in some ways a transformation of Bhaktapur's Saparu procession. Indra Jatra in Kathmandu is the period in which the living goddess, Kumari, makes her main public appearance, and establishes her relationship to the Gorkha king. In Bhaktapur this happens, with Bhaktapur's own Kumari, during Mohani. Kathmandu's Indra Jatra period is the major time for the appearance of masked dancers representing demon-like gods who fight on the side of dharma against the Asuras and other antagonistic supernatual beings. One representation of this is the killing by the Kathmandu dancers of a buffalo representing an Asura king. All this is represented in Bhaktapur during the Mohani festival and in the subsequent nine-month cycle of the Nine Durgas dancers.

Many people in Bhaktapur seem to know some local version of the


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Indra story. Here is a brief sketch of one of Bhaktapur's versions: Indra's mother sent him to get some white flowers of a special kind from a particular garden on earth. A demon caught Indra taking the flowers, accused him of stealing them, and captured him. "Indra's mother," who is not otherwise named in the tale, not knowing where Indra was, sent Indra's vehicle, an elephant, to earth to find him. The elephant found Indra and reported his whereabouts to Indra's mother, who came to earth to rescue him. The demon released Indra when his mother came, and she gave the demon clouds and fog as a reward, the clouds and fog necessary for protecting the rice, which is still growing at this period of the year. When Indra and his Mother returned to heaven, people on earth wanted to follow them and so some of them left a trail of grain on the gods' path so that the humans could later find their way there.

The twelfth day of the fortnight, the beginning of the Indra Jatra, period in Kathmandu, is called in Bhaktapur the "Yama Dya: Thanigu" day [59], the day of the erecting of the Yama God. In Kathmandu the raising of a pole made from a tall tree trunk in a central square signals the beginning of the festival there and marks a focal spatial point. In many of Bhaktapur's twa :s, tree poles are erected.[51] They are said to represent the ruler of the kingdom of death, Yama. These local poles are left up, as is the Kathmandu central one, for the entire eight-day period. Flowers are placed at the top of the pole, and twa : people do daily pujas to it during the eight days. It is thought that this will help protect the local twa : people from death. (Moderate.)

On the fourteenth day of the fortnight—and with no reference to the Indra cycle—is the Ananta Narayana[*] Puja [60]. This is a local representation of a traditional South Asian Hindu event in honor of Visnu/Narayana[*] . Many people go to one of the Visnu[*] temples on this day, as they did on the other city-wide Visnu[*] festival, Tulasi Piye [43]. Some Chathariya families follow the traditional Hindu custom of pledging to do a Brahman-assisted household puja to Visnu[*] each year on this day for a period of fourteen years. (Minor.)

On the fourteenth day (the same day as Narayana[*] Puja) and continuing on the fifteenth and final day, the full-moon day, of the fortnight is Indrani[*] Jatra [61]. Additional events of the fifteenth day are designated as the festival of that full-moon day, Yau Dya: Punhi [62], but they also represent the completion of the two-day Indrani[*] Jatra. The Indrani[*]jatra image is taken from her local god-house and carried in a procession around the entire city, followed by people from the local


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mandalic[*] area Indrani[*] is thought of, by some at least, on this occasion not as, or only as, the Indrani[*] of the Astamatrkas[*] group, but as Indra's consort. The image is carried to one of the artificial ponds in the city, the Ta Pukhu, and left there in an open building, a phalca , overnight. (Moderate.)

The next day is the full-moon day, called "Yau Dya: Punhi" [62]. The name "Yau Dya:," the Yau God, seems to come from a set of three torches called Ya matta (or Swarga ["heaven"] Ya matta ), which are carried around the city on a long stick by a member of the Sa:mi thar on the three days following this punhi . They are considered to be a manifestation of a god, and people try to see the lights, a view that is said to enable them to enter Swarga , heaven, at some time during the period. This reflects the Indra Jatra's legend's theme of the following of Indra and his mother into their heaven. On this day people come from surrounding villages and towns (particularly from the large town of Thimi) and from other parts of Bhaktapur for ritual baths in the Ta Pukhu and to worship the image of Indrani[*] . The day is, thus, a mela . In the afternoon the image is carried around the city festival route and then returned to its god-house. (Moderate.)

The span of Indra Jatra continues into the next fortnight, the waning fortnight Ya(n)laga (September). On the second day of the fortnight a man from a nearby village, paid by the central government's Guthi Samsthan, comes to Bhaktapur to begin three days of performance. He represents a demon called "Mu Patra," wears a metal crown (which is at other times kept in the Taleju temple), and dresses in the old Malla-period Moghul-style royal costume. He is accompanied by two demon attendants, called "Dhicas." He visits during these three days the poles that had been set up in the different twa :s on the Yama Dya: Thanigu day [59] representing Yama. He circumambulates each pole three times, hitting it with a traditional Malla period sword. People now are uncertain about the meaning of all this, although it seems to have been related both to the period's Indra legend and to another supernatural creature, the Pulu Kisi, who appears on the last day [65] of the period's set of events. G. S. Nepali wrote (of Bhaktapur) that the Mu Patra represented the demon enemy of Indra, and that the poles that he strikes thus represent Indra. According to Nepali, care is taken that Mu Patra does not encounter the Pulu Kisi, which "is the riding animal of Indra . . . [which] has come in search of its master. . .. In the event of their facing each other, there ensues a fight between the two, involving their respective supporters" (1965, 364). In fact, in recent memory they have


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not met, and the significance and possibility of their encounter seems no longer an issue. The violence that, as we shall see, does sometimes occur in relation to the Pulu Kisi—whose relation to Indra is now vague—is not related to the Mu Patra, who is a symbolic form that has now lost much of its meaning and power.

On the third day of the fortnight there is a small local jatra , Chuma(n) Gandya: Jatra [63], in one of the city's main twa :s, Coche(n) twa: . It is noteworthy and peculiar in that it is a minor version of a more important event with the same name, the same associated legend, and in the same location that takes place on the eighth day of the solar New Year festival, Biska:. That event will be described in the next chapter. The one listed here is minor.

On the fourth day of the fortnight, the last day of the Indra Jatra span, there are two festivals. The first, Smasana[*] Bhailadya: Jatra, is not associated with the themes of the Indra story, although it reflects references to King Yama and to death. The second, Pulu Kisi Haigu, which ends this set of events, contains some reflections of the Indra story and some correspondences to its closing sequences in Kathmandu.

Smasana[*] Bhailadya: Jatra [64], refers to the Bhairava who inhabits the Mu Dip cremation grounds (see chap. 8). "Smasana[*] " means cremation grounds in Sanskrit and Nepali. An image representing this Bhairava is painted on a pulu , a reed mat, by a properly initiated member of the Pu(n) thar , the mask makers, and painters of religious images. Pulus are the mats used for covering dead bodies while they are being carried in funeral processions to cremation grounds. If the head priest of the Taleju temple has died during the previous year, his pulu is taken from his corpse, saved, and used in this procession; otherwise, it is a new and unused one. It is said that during the time of the Malla kings their pulus were kept after their death. The pulu of a deceased king would be used every year in this annual procession until replaced by the next king's pulu following the death of that king. On this day now the pulu is hung in front of the main Bhairava temple. People either passing by or coming to the temple for the purpose, make respectful gestures to the pulu . People who encounter it fear it and, as is the case generally for dangerous deities, fear that if they neglect to worship it or show it formal respect they will be harmed in some way. At a designated time during the day a goat is sacrificed in the square adjoining the temple. The pulu is then taken and carried by a member of the Dwi(n) thar (level XII; see chap. 5) in a procession around the main city festival route until the


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Bhairava temple is once again reached and the pulu is once again hung on the wall for the remainder of the day. (Moderate.)

On the same day as the Smasana[*] Bhailadya: Jatra there is another event that makes for a kind of climax to the loosely grouped set of events of the eight-day period. This event is called "Pulu Kisi Haigu" [65]. (Pulu is the funeral mat, kisi means elephant, and haigu means to bring, thus the name means the bringing of the "Pulu Kisi.") The Pulu Kisi is an image of an elephant constructed of reed mats. The image is carried around the city, starting in the Lakulache(n) neighborhood, and is carried and attended by local people. The elephant has a bell around its neck, which is rung by the attendants during the procession. During this time other bells in the city are not to be rung. When the image passes by, bystanders, both men and women, must uncover their heads as a gesture of respect. If they do not the attendants of the elephant, often carrying the elephant with them, may charge into the crowd, and forcibly uncover the offender's head, removing the hat or shawl. The elephant also is occasionally made to charge into the crowd of bystanders even if there is no show of disrespect. This is frequently the occasion for a general fight between attendants and crowd, sometimes extending to and dividing groups or individuals within the crowd. This day is one of the times when people traditionally drink, and the attendants of the elephant and many in the crowd are drunk. When the elephant, in its movement around the city's festival route, now followed by crowds of people, approaches Dattatreya Square in the northern part of the city, it leaves the route to "drink at a well" where Indra's elephant once drank. This is often the occasion for fairly serious fights, characteristically between members of the upper and lower halves of the city. These are sometimes precipitated by someone from the upper city ringing a temple bell in the square in contravention of the custom of the day.

The Pulu Kisi refers now secondarily to Indra,[52] but more clearly to death (the funeral mats, and its association with the Smasana[*] Bhailadya: Jatra of the same day), to danger, and to threat. Its attacks on the crowd randomly or for not showing respect have parallels in the Nine Durga pyakha(n)s during the Devi cycle. Its connection to intra-city fighting is an echo of the events of the Biska: sequence. However, the similar themes in those two focal festival groups are coherently related to themes not only of ritual conflict but also the symbolic resolution of that conflict. In contrast with such festival events, and as we have noted, in contrast with the simultaneous events in Kathmandu, the events of


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the Indra Jatra period in Bhaktapur are not integrated. They seem in a sense to be fragments of what may have been once in Bhaktapur—and that is now elsewhere—a coherent set. In spite of its drama, its significance and the size of its audience probably are "moderate" in comparison to other more important events.

During these eight days pyakha(n) s, resembling some of those performed after Saparu, are given in some parts of the city. The period closes after the Pulu Kisi Haigu procession with the removal of the Indra/Yama poles in the twa :s


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