Chhath Puja!

Well, I blinked, and I found myself in the middle of another Nepali celebration—Chhath Puja!  It was yesterday and was a day off for everyone.  One location for celebration was conveniently close to Boudha so myself, Anamika and several other volunteers she rounded up headed over to Pashupatinath Temple check things out.

Chhath goes by many names but here is commonly known as Chhath Puja.  According to Wikipedia, it is a Hindu festival dedicated to celebrating the Hindu sun god Surya.  The offerings and prayers are performed to thank Surya for sustaining all life on earth as well as to request the granting of certain wishes. 

Chhath is performed on the 6^th day of the Nepali calendar, which brings me to an interesting question I forgot to pose at the outset—did you know that Nepal has its own calendar that is 56.7 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar we know and love?

I came across this when I was planning my trip here, and figuring out when to go and when the major holidays would be. It was difficult to determine out because the Nepali calendar is quite different from the one I am used to and some things are based on moon phases and some are based on ‘the x day of x Nepali month”.  Anyhow it all worked out.

The festival was incredibly lively with loud music, men selling cotton candy and balloons, and lots of people piling across a bamboo bridge to get to the temple side, and to dip into the river and offer some prashad or prayer offerings of candles, food and other things.

I had read that the festival lasts 4 days but actually, it seems just the rituals do.  I went back to the Pashupatinath temple this morning to see if anything was going on and all the people were replaced by gregarious monkeys playing in the tent stands and eating up the leftover prashad.

People cramming in to get over the bridge.

Others wading in the water to do their prayers.

A woman and some monkeys tidying up the leftovers.

Honestly these little buggers scared me a bit because it didn't take much for one to get aggressive and chase me
down a walkway. A nice lady accompanied me back so I could get to where I was going.