Gai Jatra Festival The day after Janai Purnima in the Kathmandu valley, when every household that lost someone in the past year sends a cow, or a boy dressed as one, through the streets.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Gai Jatra
- हिन्दी
- गाई जात्रा
- नेपाली
- गाईजात्रा
Only the names actually in use are listed. A blank script is not an omission: the day may simply not be kept there, or be kept under a different festival's name.
UTC+5:30
The date of a festival depends on the place: a tithi that ends at dusk in Chennai can still be running at dusk a thousand kilometres west, which moves the day. Sunrise and sunset here are computed for the place above.
When it falls next
Looking for the calendar this day belongs to
This day does not fall again in the next three years at this place. A few days are tied to the solar month rather than to the civil year, so a year can hold two of them or none.
What the day is
The day after Janai Purnima in the Kathmandu valley, when every household that lost someone in the past year sends a cow, or a boy dressed as one, through the streets. The cow is held to lead the dead across, and the point of walking in public is that the bereaved see they are not alone; the festival is said to have been set going by a queen of Kathmandu who could not stop grieving for her son. Satire, masks and the mocking of the powerful have belonged to the day for centuries, and the Nepali papers still bring out a Gai Jatra issue.
- Deity
- Yama, Gomatha
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
The hour
The rule in words
The day after Janai Purnima, the Bhadra Krishna Pratipada; the procession goes through the morning in Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur.
The fast
No fast is kept. Food and drink are handed out along the route to the families walking it.
Where the regions differ
A Newar festival of the valley towns above all; the hills and the Terai keep it lightly or not at all. Bhaktapur keeps the ghinta ghisi dance with it for a week afterwards.
Every date here is computed from the Sun and Moon for the place entered, by the rule printed beside it. A printed panchangam can differ by a day where an almanac reads a tithi at a different instant, and a family's own custom always comes first. Where the practice genuinely varies, the text says so rather than choosing for you.