• Home »
  • Blog »
  • The Nepali New Year Celebration in Nepal

The Nepali New Year Celebration in Nepal

13th Apr, 2023

Infotrekking

History of Nepali New Year

As per local people, The Nepali New Year Celebration in Nepal is a strict occasion celebrated with extraordinary significance and is completed with profound respect and dedication. The tradition of Nepal organizes its religious merriments on a changing date since they are based on the lunar calendar as compared to their public holidays. This festive is celebrated on defined dates.  Like many other Asian nations, as they face the New Year, they are commemorating the event in the hopes of having plenty of blessings along with prosperity.

Table of Contents

The Nepali Era, in view of the utilization of the Nepali Calendar, began in 879 A.D.The dates of this period can be discovered engravings on stone and copper, Nepali coins and attributable to the profoundly instilled conventions of in excess of 60 ethnic gatherings in Nepal, there are really 9 separate New Year's Days being watched by and large in Nepal. However, Nepal Sambat is declared the "Global New Year," bringing with it some sense of unity in the presence of great linguistic, cultural and historical diversity.

When is Nepali New Year?

Each year around mid-April Nepalese people come together to mark the beginning of a new year in the Bikram calendar in a festival with equal amounts with street festivals and religious ceremonies. New Year in the Nepali language is called Nava Varsha and is celebrated as an official holiday. During the second week of April, the day normally disappears. People go for picnics on this day, have get-togethers and spend the day interacting with people in various ways. Various ceremonies are conducted and annual carnivals such as Bisket Jatra, Bode Jatra, and Sindoor Jatra are enthusiastically performed in traditional style to welcome the New Year. New Year's Eve activities and parties are held for party lovers often in bars, hotels, and restaurants.

Why the Nepali New Year is different?

This is on the grounds that the Nepali schedule is particular from different countries ' schedules, and is called Bikram Sambat. Bikram Sambat is ahead of the Gregorian calendar by around 57 years. Within Nepal's calendar, the length of months is calculated by astronomical measurements and is different year by year. For instance the current month of Nepal, this year 2078 Chaitra is 30 days. This will last for 31 days next year. Per year the festivals often fall on different dates.

What do people usually do in the New Year?

To most Hindu people, this day is a holy day, since this is the beginning of their holy calendar year. Local people invest their energy with supplications and love inside their sanctuaries promptly toward the beginning of the day, as indicated by their conventions, and offer Puja, which is a function devoted to. Nepali New Year festivity accompanies merry exercises that incorporate road moves, marches, and social events all through the locale. The clarification has reliably been adequately attracted and the affiliations and individuals have completely supported it. In contrast to the Global New Year, New Year's kin here are likewise making new objectives/goals.

Festival vibes during New Year

Bisket Jatra/ Bhaktapur:

If you choose to be part of a festival during the Nepali New Year Celebration where hundreds are bent on pulling two massive wooden chariots in separate directions, then Bhaktapur's Bisket Jatra is the event for you! It is commended for a couple of days prior, during and after the Nepali New Year celebration. Besides statues of the gods Bhairab and Bhadrakali, other gods and goddesses are also throned on palanquins on two huge chariots (raths), and taken in a procession around the ancient city. Groups of young men pull the raths through ropes. They're set to rest in certain areas in the city during the parade, where local people come and give proper respect to the gods. Two wooden poles (lingos) are erected in two areas of the city during the festival.

In the New Year, the big one is taken down, at which time the two huge raths are often made to compete with each other. Obviously, these two competitions call for a reasonable degree of pushing and pulling, compounded by the fact that different groups of local young men compete for the privilege of crashing down the massive wooden pole! Many equally energetic young men, while, are busy measuring their strength by pulling in a virtual tug-of-war at the raths.

Thimi:

Not so far from Bhaktapur, there is Thimi's small town, renowned for its pottery making. The Thimi citizens enjoy Sindoor Jatra on the third day of Bisket Jatra. You'll get a chance to observe a Palanquin Parade on this day. Palanquins are sort of like stuff you see in historical movies. The four people on their shoulders take a queen out. Each palanquin has imagery of another deity. If they all come together, Thimi's members throw orange sindoor at them. There is an extraordinary palanquin on this celebration which has the essence of Ganesh on it.

This hand-held chariot is of Nagadish heritage. This shows up after the others, and it is standard for the Ganesh palanquin to attempt to escape back and Nagadish without different palanquins being gotten.

Bode :

Thimi in Bhaktapur, a significant shrine of a Mahalakshmi Tantric deity brings in an unusual tongue-boring practice; Bode is renowned for its tongue piercing ceremony during the Nepali New Year Celebration. One lucky local gets the honor this day to have their tongue pierced. But, not all of that. He then has to walk around the city while holding lit torches on his shoulders with the iron running through his tongue. 

Recent Posts