Preparing a route nobody could hold in their head

A circuit of 1,400 shrines is not something a crowd can improvise on the day. It has to be laid out first, and the laying-out is its own observance.

From the first day of Gunla, a party from the host locality — often a hundred people or more — assembles after midnight with the nava baja, the nine-instrument Newar ensemble, and walks a section of the coming route in the dark. At each shrine and each courtyard they leave a mark: vermilion, husked rice, a coin. They do not attempt the whole route in one night; they go out for several nights running until it is finished.

This preparation is called Bogiwonegu, and it is one of the least-witnessed things in the Newar year, because it happens at two in the morning in lanes with nobody in them. If you are staying in Patan during Gunla, you may well hear a drum ensemble pass under your window in the dark and never learn what it was.

Why it matters on the day

By dawn on Matya the route physically exists — a line of red-marked shrines running through the city that thousands of walkers can follow without a guide, a map or an announcement. The marks are the infrastructure of the festival, and they are made by hand, at night, in advance, every year.