Dashain Festival in Nepal: Its History, Traditions and the Story Behind Those Fifteen Days

There are many festivals in Nepal, and every festival has its own beauty, story and tradition. But for me, Dashain has always felt different. It is not only a festival that comes once a year. It is a time when the whole atmosphere of Nepal seems to change. The streets become quieter in some places (mostly Kathmandu) and much busier in others. People who have been living and working far from their hometowns start making plans to go home. Markets become crowded with people buying new clothes, food and gifts. Children become excited about the bamboo swings. Houses are cleaned. Relatives start calling one another. Kitchens become busy. And, perhaps most importantly, families begin coming together. I have always liked Dashain very much, not simply because of the food or the holidays, but because of the feeling that comes with it. There is something special about waking up in the morning knowing that everyone is home. The usual routine disappears for a while. We have more time to sit together, talk, eat, laugh and visit relatives.

One of the memories I associate most strongly with Dashain is the red tika on my forehead. After receiving tika and jamara from my elders, I would look in the mirror and see my forehead covered in bright red. It was a simple thing, but somehow it made the festival feel real. The blessings of my elders, the jamara tucked behind my ears, the new clothes, the smell of food coming from the kitchen and the sound of people talking around the house all became part of what Dashain meant to me. And then there were the cards. Me and my friends would get together and play cards during the holiday. Sometimes we played seriously, sometimes we simply played for fun, and most of the time there was plenty of laughing, teasing and arguing over the rules. Those small moments are still some of my favorite parts of Dashain. For me, that is the real beauty of this festival. Dashain is found not only in temples and religious ceremonies but also in these ordinary moments.

What Dashain actually is?

Dashain, also called Bada Dashain (big Dashain) and Bijaya Dashami, is the longest and most widely observed festival in Nepal. The name comes from the Sanskrit dashami, the tenth day of the lunar fortnight, which is the day everything builds toward. It falls in the Nepali month of Ashwin (Asoj), so it lands in late September or October depending on the lunar calendar. It begins on the first day of the waxing moon and ends on the full moon fifteen days later.

Ten of those days are the core of the festival, and five more follow as a long, quiet wind-down. The dates move by up to a few weeks each year because Nepal follows the lunar Bikram Sambat calendar. This year the festival begins on Sunday, October 11, and the main tika day is Wednesday, October 21. Government offices, schools and banks close for about a week around the peak, which is the only reason many families can gather at all.

The Origin, Background, Where it comes from

When it comes to finding out about the origin of Dashain, or when anyone asks me what Dashain is, I remember the story my grandparents used to tell me about the goddess Durga and the buffalo demon Mahishasura.

It comes from a Sanskrit text called the Devi Mahatmya, part of the Markandeya Purana, composed several centuries into the first millennium AD. The demon Mahishasura had received a boon that no man or god could kill him. Confident in that protection, he defeated the gods and took heaven for himself. The gods, unable to fight back, pooled their powers. Their combined energy took the form of a woman, Durga, who was given a weapon by each god: a trident, a discus, a conch, a bow, and a lion to ride. She fought Mahishasura for nine days and nights, and on the tenth she killed him.

That is the first reason for the timing. The nine days of battle are the nine nights of Navaratri, and the tenth is Vijaya Dashami, the day of victory. In Nepal, the goddess appears in different forms across those nine days, and you will hear names like Shailaputri, Brahmacharini, Kushmanda and Kalratri, each associated with a specific day and a specific aspect of her power. The nine forms together are called Navadurga.

A second tradition ties the same tenth day to the Ramayana. In this version, Lord Ram worships Durga before his battle with the ten-headed king Ravan, asking for her strength, and defeats Ravan on Dashami. Storytellers in Bengal say Ram performed this worship out of season, in autumn, which is how the autumn form of the festival got its distinctive character. The Ram version is more prominent in India, where effigies of Ravan are burned on Dashami night, but in Nepal both stories sit comfortably together. My grandmother tells both, sometimes in the same breath, and treats the difference as a matter of emphasis rather than contradiction.

There is another layer beneath the myth: the seasonal one. Dashain arrives right as the monsoon retreats and the rice paddies turn yellow. The barley shoots sown on the first day are, in an older reading, a prayer for the harvest. Long before anyone told the story of Durga in this valley, farming communities in the hills would have marked this same moment, when the rains end and the year’s work is nearly done. The goddess story and the harvest calendar fit so well because they probably grew together.

While the reasons behind this festival and its celebration may vary from one story and person to another, for me, Dashain is a celebration of life and the happiness we share with our loved ones. It is a time when we finally try to forget the stress of the year, celebrate life, and find joy in the small moments that we often overlook in our busy lives. Even the smallest moments seem to hold a sense of bliss and happiness that we sometimes forget to appreciate. For me, Dashain brings back those beautiful moments and reminds me to find happiness in the simple things we often take for granted.

How the Dashain is Celebrated in Nepali ?

The Nepali form of Dashain has its own history, and it varies depending on where you stand. In the Kathmandu Valley, the Newar community calls the festival Mohani and has kept its own distinct customs for centuries. Their rituals are centred on Taleju Bhawani, the royal deity of the Malla kings who ruled the valley’s city-states before the late 18th century. In Bhaktapur, masked dancers perform the Navadurga dances, one of the most striking spectacles in the country, in which men take on the forms of the goddess and her attendant spirits.

The Gorkhali kingdom, which unified most of present-day Nepal under the Shah dynasty from the 1760s onward, brought its own version. Gorkha, the small hill town that was the Shahs’ ancestral home, has a palace where the fulpati offerings were traditionally prepared and carried on foot to the capital. As the Shah state grew, Dashain became a state occasion as well as a religious one. The king gave tika to officials, soldiers and citizens. Military parades marked the festival. Sacrifices at the royal palaces became part of the rhythm of the state.

After the monarchy was abolished in 2008, the President took over the ceremonial role. The palace tradition faded, but the festival did not. Dashain had already moved from the palace into the household, which is why it survived.

The Dashain Days one by one

Day 1: Ghatasthapana

Ghata means pot, sthapana means establishing. On this first day, a priest or the eldest family member picks an auspicious moment, often early in the morning, and the household installs a kalash, a pot of holy water, to represent Durga. Around it, barley seeds are sown in the sand-and-soil tray. Sometimes wheat, maize or other grains are mixed in, but barley is the classic.

The tray is stored in dark room conditions, watered every day and never placed outside in the sun. Due to the darkness, the shoots are not green, but turn pale yellow. This is the jamara. After 10 days it is 5-6″ tall, soft and sweet smelling. It’s a little bit weird, but that makes it quite interesting.

When I was a little boy I got the watering job. It was serious business and we had a disagreement over who should get to do it amongst cousins. I can still recall the little brass cup, the sound of the water beating upon the sand and how my grandfather would look at the shoots each morning and say nothing. From the first day, somebody in the family also reads or recites the verses of the Devi Mahatmya or the Chandi in the morning and the lamp placed beside the kalash is kept alight. It is seldom taken out for nine days in many homes.

Days 2 to 6: The Slow Build

These are the quiet days, and I think they are underrated. The shopping happens here. New clothes for everyone, and for the children especially, since Dashain is one of the few times a year when they get an entirely new outfit. Families buy oil, spices, rice, lentils, and enough vegetables to survive the next two weeks of visitors. Goats and chickens are chosen and brought home. In villages you can hear the goats before you see them, tied up behind houses and looking unbothered.

On the other hand, cities like Kathmandu welcomes the most busiest days,: the bus parks fill, ticket prices climb, and the roads out of Kathmandu turn into slow-moving rivers of vehicles. Buses leave the valley in enormous numbers, many with passengers and luggage on the roof. If you have ever wondered why Kathmandu feels oddly quiet during Dashain, this is where the people went.

Day 5 and 6 are not significant days in most homes. Nepalis working abroad such as in the Gulf, Malaysia, Korea and elsewhere take their vacations during this period. The festival comes to life when the first migrant relative arrives with a suitcase and a big plastic bag of gifts.

Day 7: Fulpati

The word “Fulpati” translates to “flowers and leaves. On the seventh day, flowers, leaves, banana stalks, sugarcane and jamara is collected and carried in a ritual march to honor the seventh day. It traditionally is taken from Gorkha to Kathmandu and the parade at Hanuman Dhoka, performed by the Nepal army band and the traditional naumati baja ensemble, is a great official ceremony. There are hundreds of temples and homes around the country where local versions occur. The gift is accepted, sanctified and placed in the family’s ritual area.

The government holiday period begins around this day, and the mood at home shifts. The house becomes louder. The cooking gets serious.

Day 8: Maha Ashtami

Ashtami is the eighth day and is considered as the harsher night of the festival. Called Kalratri, the “dark night,” it is when Durga is worshipped in her fiercest form, Kali. In many temples, particularly dedicated to Kali and Durga worship continues into the night. Hanuman Dhoka is one of the government ceremonies of Kathmandu, and at the Kot Parva, animal sacrifices and gun salutes take place.

At home, it is a quieter and stranger day. In our family, the food was simpler and no one raised their voice. I remember the sense that something was happening beyond the house, beyond the village. The adults spoke in lower voices. It is a mood that’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t felt it, a kind of held breath before the big days.

Day 9: Maha Navami

On the 9th day is the final day of battle for the goddess, and it is the day on which the animal sacrifice occurs for many communities. The Buffaloes, goats, ducks and chickens are sold at temples, particularly at the Kalika and Taleju temples. It’s the only day of the year that Taleju Temple in Kathmandu is open to the public, and the lines wrap around the block outside the temple. Navami is also a day when vehicles are worshipped. Cars, motor-bikes, trucks and buses are blessed with a small offering, a garland of marigolds called tika. The ritual is very important to taxi drivers, who are constantly struggling against the road the rest of the year.

At home, a goat is sacrificed in many families, and the meat, blessed as prasad, is cooked and eaten that evening or the next day. I’ll return to this subject below, because it deserves honest treatment. For now it is enough to say that for a great many Nepali families, the goat curry on Navami and Dashami is the meal of the year, and the sacrificial rite behind it is understood as an offering of thanks rather than a display of violence.

Day 10: Vijaya Dashami

This is the day. The tenth day, the day of victory, the day of tika.

I wake up early because everyone does. Baths are taken, the best clothes are pulled out, and the house has the electrical nervousness of a wedding morning. In the ritual room, the jamara is ready, now tall and pale and soft. A plate has been prepared with rice, yogurt and red vermilion powder mixed into a wet, dark-red paste. That paste is the tika.

At the moment the priest has specified (the auspicious sait, which is announced each year by the Nepal Panchanga Nirnayak Samiti and printed in every newspaper), the eldest person in the household begins. In our house, that was my grandfather. He sat cross-legged on a mat. Each family member, oldest to youngest, came forward and touched his feet. He pressed the tika onto their forehead with his thumb, pushed a few strands of jamara into their hair or behind the ear, gave a blessing for long life and good fortune, and handed over the dakshina, a gift of money.

One can remember the feeling of that thumb. The paste is cool and slightly wet, and the pressure is firm. My grandfather’s thumb was rough. When he pressed it to my forehead I felt, in a way I could not have explained at nine, that I was being marked as part of something. The rice grains stick, the yogurt smells faintly sour, and the red spreads a little and dries in the sun.

The red tika on my forehead was, and still is, the single thing I associate most strongly with home. By the end of the day, my forehead is a sticky red mess, layered with tikas from a dozen relatives. My mother tells me not to wash it off. I never do.

After the household’s tika, the visits begin. The tradition is to go to the elders in the family, starting with the closest and moving outward. A visit to the maternal uncle’s house, the mama ghar, is especially important, and in many families it is a fixed part of the day. Neighbours, teachers, family friends and community elders are visited too. The younger you are, the more houses you visit, and the more money you collect. Children come home with pockets full of crisp notes, a fact that is central to their view of the entire holiday.

Since 2008, the President has taken the place of the king in the official ceremony, offering tika to well-wishers in Kathmandu. The national spectacle continues, but it is now one among thousands of tika ceremonies happening across the country at the same time.

Days 11 to 15: The Long Goodbye

The tika does not end on the tenth day. It continues through the next five days, until the full moon, Kojagrat Purnima. The eleventh day, Ekadashi, is a common time to visit relatives who weren’t reachable on Dashami. Some families still give tika through the full moon. Others treat the tenth as the peak and use the rest as a slow, soft landing.

Kojagrat Purnima, the fifteenth day, is the end. The name means roughly “who is awake?”, and it is associated with Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. The tradition is to stay up all night, and in many homes a lamp is lit and a small worship is offered to Lakshmi. The full moon over the valley in mid-autumn is, when the sky is clear, one of the most beautiful sights of the year. After this night, the swings come down, the kalash is put away, the visitors leave, and the house goes quiet. A few weeks later Tihar begins, and the cycle starts again.

The Fun Part: Bamboo swings, cards, and the other Dashain

The religious calendar tells you what happens. It doesn’t tell you what Dashain feels like, and for me the feeling lives in the parts nobody writes down.

Ping: The Bamboo Swings

Every village has one. In the days before Dashain, men and boys gather to build the ping, a giant swing made from four tall bamboo poles lashed into a frame, with a thick rope hanging from the top and a wooden seat or a simple loop at the bottom. The rope is twisted from natural fibres, though plastic ones appear more often now. It is built in an open field or at the edge of the village, tightened and tested, then declared ready.

For the next two weeks, the swing is never empty. Children take it in shifts. Teenagers stand on the seat and swing higher and higher, showing off. Adults come at dusk, and the swing becomes something like a social club. When I was younger, I remember the first sensation of the swing as pure fear. The ground drops away, the sky tilts, your stomach lifts into your throat. Then, after a few swings, you learn to lean into it. You stop being afraid, and something opens in your chest that I can only call joy.

In many hill and Terai villages there is also a lingo, a bamboo Ferris wheel that spins by hand. Both the ping and the lingo are dismantled after Kojagrat Purnima. There is something moving about the way a village builds a playground out of bamboo for two weeks, then takes it apart and goes back to work.

My friends and I spent most of our afternoons there. We would swing until our palms were raw from the rope, then lie in the grass and eat whatever our cousins had smuggled out of the kitchen. It sounds small, and it was. It was also the best part of my childhood.

Cards

Then there are the cards. For a few weeks each autumn, Nepal turns into a country of card players. Me and my friends played nearly every evening from Ghatasthapana until the full moon. We played flash (a three-card game closely related to teen patti), marriage, a version of rummy, and paplu, a Nepali favourite. The stakes were small, usually a few rupees, sometimes just bragging rights. Someone would bring a thermos of tea and a plate of fried snacks, and we would play until the oil in the lamp ran low or our parents told us to sleep.

I should be honest here. Gambling is illegal in Nepal outside licensed casinos, and it is sometimes controversial during Dashain and Tihar, when card games are everywhere and occasionally get out of hand. Police do make arrests. A game among friends for pocket money is generally treated with a wink, but there are also stories of families hurt by real losses, and I’ve seen a few. I’d say cards are like the goat curry, essential to the festival for most people and a problem for a few. If you play, keep it small and keep it friendly.

For me, the cards were never about money. They were about being seated on the floor with people I loved, arguing about rules and pretending to bluff, laughing so hard someone had to leave the room. Some of my clearest memories from those years are the sound of cards being shuffled, and my cousin’s terrible poker face, and the lamp throwing our shadows against the wall.

Kites and food

In the cities, and increasingly in villages too, the sky fills with kites. Dashain is kite season in the Kathmandu Valley, and rooftops become small arenas. The goal is to cut your opponent’s string with your own, and the cry when you succeed, changa chet!, echoes across the roofs. Kids spend days preparing their strings, gluing crushed glass to the thread, guarding their reels. It is a competition and a performance, and adults are sucked in as well.

And then the food. The centre of the Dashain table is goat meat, cooked in a dozen ways, most often as a curry with a thick, dark gravy. There is sel roti, the ring-shaped rice bread that is fried in oil and eaten with potato curry or yogurt. There is kheer, sweet rice pudding, and dahi, yogurt, and pickles, and in many homes a large batch of achar made the week before. There is beaten rice, lentils, greens, and rice as the foundation for all of it. For a few days, the household eats in a way that it doesn’t for the rest of the year, and nobody counts. The kitchen becomes the place where the family talks, and the sound of the pressure cooker becomes the sound of the festival.

Dashain 2026 (2083 BS) at a glance

Day	Occasion	Date
1	Ghatasthapana	Sunday, October 11
7	Fulpati	Saturday, October 17
8	Maha Ashtami	Sunday, October 18
9	Maha Navami	Around October 19 to 20 (calendar sources differ by a day, so check the official panchang)
10	Vijaya Dashami (main tika day)	Wednesday, October 21
15	Kojagrat Purnima	Sunday, October 25

Trek Nepal During Dashain: Clear Skies and a Festival Underfoot

Dashain arrives just as the monsoon lifts, and that timing is a gift for trekkers. October brings washed-clean air, crisp mornings, and mountain views that seem close enough to touch. Terraced fields turn gold, trails are dry, and the Himalayan skyline opens up in a way it rarely does earlier in the year. This is also the time when Nepal celebrates its biggest festival. Along the trail, you may see families gathering in village homes, bamboo swings rising at the edge of fields, and foreheads marked with the red tika.Some hosts will happily welcome a trekker into the celebration, with a blessing or a shared meal. It’s a cultural experience no itinerary can fully script.

Whether you are planning the Annapurna Circuit, Everest Base Camp, or a quieter route like Langtang, Dashain adds a human layer to the mountains. Plan ahead, travel with respect, and you will bring home more than photographs. Ask us about Dashain-season departures.

For me, Dashain will always be the time when our country seems to slow down and people find their way back to one another. I remember the red tika on my forehead. I remember the jamara. I remember playing cards with my friends. I remember the bamboo swing. I remember eating with my family. I remember visiting relatives. And most of all, I remember the feeling that came with all of it. The feeling of being home. That, for me, is Dashain.