1. As the Swanti sequence includes the lunar New Year's Day, its numbering contains the last and first days of the annual cycle. [BACK]

2. The ambiguity of the reference of many terms for this period (e.g., Divali, Dipavali, Tihar, Tiwar) as referring to a three-day or five-day span is more general than in the Newar case. Sometimes the terms designate a five-day period, sometimes they are applied to a three-day core period to which two additional days of events are added (e.g., Kane 1968-1977, vol. V, p. 194; see also "Tiwar," R. L. Turner 1965, 286). [BACK]

3. There are Puranic^{[ *]} references to gambling during this festival, which in some other parts of South Asia takes place on the fifth day of the sequence (Kane 1968-1977, vol. V, p. 203). According to Kane's reference, the gambling is conceived as an omen, forecasting whether the gambler would gain or loose his wealth during the course of the year. [BACK]

4. During the Rana period tents were set up in the city where large groups of townspeople could join together in gambling. [BACK]

5. Laksmi is called "Lachimi" in Bhaktapur, but we are following the convention for the festivals that we used in our discussion of the deities of using Sanskrit names for the major pan-Hindu deities. [BACK]

6. Certain upper-status families most closely derived from the Malla kings and their priests make a food offering to Taleju before the house puja to Laksmi, and they take an oil lamp from the Taleju temple to the household as one of the lights to be presented to Laksmi during the course of the household puja . [BACK]

7. The Brahmans and a few high-status Chathariya families who emulate them are an exception. They use Acajus rather than the household naki(n) to perform the worship. [BACK]

8. In G. S. Nepali's account of this ceremony for another Newar community, he was told that the mandalas^{[ *]} represent Yama, the deity of death. This is not the interpretation of our informants, but the symbolism of Yama is central to the Swanti sequence. Nepali also reports that the lamp wicks offered were as long as the height of the person to whom they were presented, and that their length symbolized the length of the life of the individual (1965, 381). The wicks offered in Bhaktapur are commonly about a foot in length, but very much longer than ordinary oil-amp wicks. [BACK]

9. In some Jyapu families the custom is, in fact, restricted to the worship of younger brothers by elder sisters. In the traditional Hindu account of the origin and practice of the puja , in India, the sister is primarily a younger sister, modeled on Yama's younger sister Yamuna (e.g., Kane, 1968-1977, vol. V, p. 2207f.). [BACK]

10. From here on our estimates of the importance of events for Bhaktapur will be given in a parenthetical note. [BACK]

11. Many of these days apparently had in the past, different names throughout the year for each one of their successive occurrences. Only a few such special names are known now, and even fewer of them now have any special differentiated current significance. [BACK]

12. The main temple image, considered the essential one and a form that is often hidden from the view of all except initiated priests, is never removed from the temple. [BACK]

13. Bhaktapur's main annual festival directed to the same purpose is Saparu [48]. [BACK]

14. The local tale goes that Kubera, the god of wealth, came to a house disguised as a beggar. The householders asked him in and offered him Ya: Marhi cakes to eat. The god revealed who he was and told his hosts that on that day henceforth their grain storeroom would always be filled. [BACK]

15. Iltis (1985) includes a full translation of one version of the collected stories. [BACK]

16. This is a peculiar combination of Newar and non-Newar traditions. The girls past the Ihi ceremony are always married in that they have had a mock-marriage to a deity. One of the purposes of this is to prevent the traditional Hindu stigmata of widowhood, as the social marriage is (in a restricted way) a secondary remarriage. The nonparticipation of Newar widows in the Swasthani ceremony implies, in this case, the acceptance of the ritual status of widow. [BACK]

17. The representation of Siva as a linga , or phallus, is a major theme in the Swasthani story, where it is an object of worship by Parvati, and a dangerous force that had to be controlled by Visnu^{[ *]} (Bennett 1983). [BACK]

18. Iltis, on the basis of discussions with Newar women reported that the large majority of women, in contrast with Bennett's reports on Chetri women, said that they did not participate in the vrata in order to overcome some particular problem, but rather "for merit and to help others, as well as to assure a continued good future" (1985, 611). There may well be problems here in the difference between local conventions about expressing a motive for a religious proceeding and the generally understood private motives. [BACK]

19. In connection with the reference to Lhasa it may be noted that Sarasvati is associated in some versions of this tale with the Vajrayana Buddhist deity Manjusri. [BACK]

20. As we will see when we discuss the spatial arrangements of the solar Biska: Festival, the Khware-Ga:hiti axis is part of the line dividing the city into lower and upper sections, which are marked and placed into opposition during that festival. The use of this route here adds to the sparse evidence for the association of the city's two major Visnu/Narayana^{[ *]} temples with city halves. [BACK]

21. If the woman was a widow she would present the eight cakes to her son, and if she had no son they were sent to the river and discarded there. [BACK]

22. The name of the Ca:re, "Sila," is in folk etymology, at least, associated with Sila , stone, which, in turn, is said to stand for Siva's linga , usually represented in stone. It is also alternatively said to derive from the name of the month, Silla. All ca:re s are in Saivite Hindu tradition associated with Siva. Kane notes that "The 14th tithi of the dark half of a month is called Sivaratri" but that this particular one is the Sivaratri, par excellence (1974, vol. V, p. 225). The association of the other ca:re s with Siva is played down in Bhaktapur's emphasis on the Goddess. [BACK]

23. Hunting is a Ksatriya^{[ *]} activity, and the hunter in Kane's version is a king. As we have seen in the discussion of Tantra, the transcendence or manipulation of the ordinary dharmic realm is a necessary characteristic of Ksatriya^{[ *]} religion. [BACK]

24. In Patan, in contrast, the Krsna^{[ *]} image carried in procession on this day is housed in one of the city's major and most imposing temples, a temple specially devoted to that deity. [BACK]

25. See Anderson (1973, chap. 34) for a description of the events of this day elsewhere in the Kathmandu Valley. [BACK]

26. In parts of India where the year began with the month of Caitra, this day was often in honor of Brahma. Kane notes, in passing, in a description of Caitra New Year events that in their course the worshiper should anoint his body with oil and take a bath (1968-1977, vol. V, p. 83). [BACK]

27. The previous day, the fourteenth is called "Matati Ca:re," the ca:re of the Mata Tirtha, but there are no special activities in Bhaktapur on this day beyond those of an ordinary ca:re . For some of the legends told about the pilgrimage site, see Anderson (1971, 51). [BACK]

28. As in many calendrical events, this requires planning and coordination for the movements of a woman who is both a daughter and a mother. [BACK]

30. Lewis (1984) has a detailed account of the annual festival calendar of the Newar Buddhist merchant group, the Tuladhars, in Kathmandu. [BACK]

31. Although the Buddha can be amalgamated to Hinduism as a minor avatar of Visnu^{[ *]} , the general doctrine, overt among Brahman theorists, is that any form that is believed to be divine by anyone and that is worshiped may be considered as a deity. [BACK]

32. The four deities of the Panauti Jatra are Bhadrakali^{[ *]} , Brahmani, Bhairava, and Indresvar Mahadeva. For a description of this event, "the culminating point of the religious year" at Panauti, see Toffin (1984, 509-520). [BACK]

33. The day of Hari Sayani in itself is a minor event. [BACK]

34. Gu means "nine," and the compound gunhi means "nine days," referring to the period of special activities initiated by this day. Manandhar (1976, 87) gives the form "Gunu Punhi.'' [BACK]

35. In the years subsequent to this study the younger and more modernized Brahmans began to resist this annual hair-shaving. [BACK]

36. In other Newar cities the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans during the course of the day also tie such bags with yellow thread around the wrists of their jajaman s. In Bhaktapur, however, the custom is for the non-Rajopadhyaya Brahmans, the Jha and Bhatta^{[ *]} , to tie the bags on the wrists of men of upper-status and farmer families who are not otherwise the clients of these "non-Newar" Brahmans. [BACK]

37. As is the case with both these sources for many of the festivals we are describing in these chapters, some of the details and versions of the stories they report are unfamiliar to us for Bhaktapur. [BACK]

38. This is a traditional South Asian belief. "Vaitarani. The name of the foetid river which flows between the earth and the nether regions, and over which the dead pass to Yama's realm. . . . Vaitarani is also the name of the cow presented to the priest during the funerary rites, in the belief that it will carry the dead man safely across the dreaded river" (Stutley and Stutley 1977, 318). [BACK]

39. There is, as we shall note, a variation in this ordering in the last segment of the procession. [BACK]

40. Whatever the situation may have been in the past, there is some uncertainty as to when the shift from a child to an adult representation should be made. It is not simply a matter of level of rites of passage now (i.e., Ihi mock-marriage for a girl, Kaeta Puja for a boy), but a decision each family must make within an uncertain age span. The fact that the large image is considerably more expensive than the small one influences this decision. [BACK]

41. In other competing accounts of the fate of the soul after death, one would have long before passed through one's preta state. [BACK]

42. The variants "Ghi(n)ta" for Ghe(n)ta(n) and "Ghisi(n)" for Ghesi(n) are also used. [BACK]

43. As Newar women do not dance now, with the one exception noted m the discussion of the period just following the day of Saparu, It is generally assumed that these dances represent dances once done in the past at some period when women still danced in public. [BACK]

44. Although young Brahman men participate in most dance types, they are said never to do obscene dances. [BACK]

45. Some people "carry placards decrying social ills—real, exaggerated or entirely imaginary. Local newspapers participate in Gai Jatra satire, with stories announcing a great increase in salary for the superfluous masses of government workers. Others tell of the release of all political prisoners, who are now to be absorbed into the ranks of officialdom. Again it is reported that the abolished caste system has been replaced with rank 'according to wealth.' On this day, supposedly, citizens are free to express themselves without fear of reprisal" (Anderson 1971, 103). [BACK]

46. " Au(n)si " is the Nepali term for "new-moon day" and is used not only for this general Nepali festival, but usually for new-moon day in general, rather than the Newari term amai . [BACK]

47. See Anderson (1971, chap. 12) for the legend associated with this mela . [BACK]

48. There is another Bhairava Jatra of great symbolic importance in the course of the solar New Year festival, Biska: [20-29]. The jatra image used in that festival is a different one from the one used in this festival, although it is housed in the same temple. [BACK]

49. Compare Toffin (1984, 530). Lewis (1984, 373), remarking that the Buddhist Newar Tuladhars of Kathmandu, whom he studied, did not observe Tij, says that "shresthas^{[ *]} and other Newar Hindu women" do observe it. This may have been a misreporting by his Newar Buddhist informants. It is also possible that some Newar groups who have assimilated to Indo-Nepalese culture may have introduced the practice. [BACK]

50. In South Asia the vrata proper to this day was traditionally practiced mostly by women. According to the Brahmanda^{[ *]} Purana^{[ *]} "if a woman performs this vrata she enjoys happiness, becomes endowed with good bodily form, beauty and sons and grandsons" (Kane 1968-1977, vol. V, p. 150). [BACK]

51. According to Niels Gutschow, most of these poles are placed along the main festival route, but may be located anywhere else in the twa :. Certain families, mostly Jyapus, erect the poles year after year. [BACK]