1. The events that take place in multiple numbers of years are mela s, in which people from Bahktapur join masses of other Nepalis in a visit to some shrine elsewhere in the Kathmandu Valley or in wider Nepal. Most mela s are annual events that are only tangentially connected with the city order. There are four prominent nonannual ones, three of these taking place every twelve years, and one every thirty-three months. Calendrically determined or encouraged events with monthly, fortnightly, or weekly cycles are primarily matters of household and individual worship. Thus, Tuesdays, for example, are proper for Ganesa^{[ *]} worship, particularly if they fall on the fourth day of a lunar fortnight. The first day of each lunar fortnight is particularly proper for the worship of Visnu^{[ *]} , the full-moon day for worship of the moon, the fourteenth day of the dark lunar fortnight for worship of the dangerous goddesses, and so on. [BACK]

2. Manandhar defines " nakha :" as "a festival in which the central event involves a feast called nakhatya put on at home," and notes in his definition of " nakhatya " that it entails an invitation to women married out of the household (1976, 244). There are, in fact, some nakha cakha in which married out women are not, properly speaking, "invited" in that they must return to their natal homes as an integral part of the ceremony. [BACK]

3. There are, approximately, seventeen annual mela s in which some or many of Bhaktapur's citizens might participate. Among these six are intimately connected with the annual cycle, and are listed in the city's annual festival calendars. These are the events [4], [15], [32], [33], [35], and [51], discussed in the following chapters. (Please see chap. 13, last paragraph in "Introduction" section, for an explanation of these bracketed numbers.) Two of these take place at the same time as events within the city, but are not particularly connected with them. The remainder of the mela s, including those four that take place in multiple numbers of years, are not connected with city events. [BACK]

4. For an extended description of Nepalese and Hindu calendars and eras, see Slusser (1982, vol. 1, pp. 381-391). See also D. R. Regmi (1965-1966, part I, p. 49; part II, p. 793ff.), Gaborieau (1982), Freed and Freed (1964), and Kane (1968-1977, vol. V). [BACK]

5. For non-Newar Nepalis of Indian origin, the "Indo-Nepalese," and in some other parts of South Asia the lunar month begins on the day following the full moon (Gnanambal 1967, 4). [BACK]

6. These are, respectively, timila and khimila in Kathmandu Newari; mila , according to Manandhar (1976, 452), deriving from an old Newari term for moon. [BACK]

7. In practice, the Nepal, term au(n)si is usually used for the new-moon day. [BACK]

8. Traditionally the names of the solar months were those of the corresponding signs of the zodiac. Basham writes that the solar calendar was imported with ancient Western astronomy and is known to have been used since Gupta times onward, "although it did not oust the old luni-solar calendar until recent years" (1967, 495). He remarks that the Sanskrit names of the signs of the zodiac from which the names of the solar months were derived are almost exact translations of the Greek originals. [BACK]

9. Gnanambal's report (1967) on Indian "festivals" includes fourteen festivals (some of which have more than one component part and lasts more than one day) celebrated generally throughout India, in contrast to the many festivals restricted to one or to a group of states. [BACK]