Indra Jatra

Indra Jatra — Yenya in Newar — is Kathmandu's greatest street festival, an eight-day celebration in Bhadra (around September) that marks the end of the monsoon. It folds together three strands: the worship of Indra, the rain god; Kumari Jatra, the chariot procession of the living goddess; and the display of the city's many Bhairavs.

Its legend explains why a king of the gods is honoured in the streets. Indra, it is said, came down to the valley in disguise to gather parijat (night-jasmine) flowers for his mother's worship; not recognised, he was seized and bound as a common thief. His mother descended to earth to reveal his identity and win his release, and in return promised the valley winter dew for its crops and safe passage to heaven for the recently dead — which is why bereaved families join the processions. The festival is traditionally credited to the 10th-century king Gunakamadeva.

It opens with the raising of the Yosin, a tall ceremonial pole, at Hanuman Dhoka. Over the following nights the squares fill with masked dances — the red-faced Majipa Lakhe demon, the Pulukisi (a bamboo-framed elephant, Indra's mount searching for him), the sword-wielding Sawa Bhakku Bhairav, and the nightly Das Avatar of Vishnu's ten incarnations — while huge Bhairav masks, among them the Akash Bhairav at Indra Chok, are unveiled, and rice beer pours from the mouth of the giant Sweta Bhairav mask at Hanuman Dhoka for the crowds to catch. The most beloved rite, the Kumari Jatra, was added in 1756 by the last Malla king of Kathmandu, Jaya Prakash Malla: the Kumari — a young girl revered as the living form of the goddess Taleju — is drawn through the old city in a great chariot flanked by the chariots of Ganesh and Bhairav. The festival closes with the lowering of the Yosin pole, releasing Indra back to the heavens.