The festival Dashain

Well I have just recently returned from being out in the remote North West of Nepal, and now I can catchup with some of the blogs I haven't had a chance to write. I should put a note about Dashain, which was at the end of September, start of October. It's good that I'm up to date.

The major Hindu festival of Nepal is without a doubt, Dasain. It is the equivalent to Christmas in Christianity.
There are 15 days of celebration, in which most people take holidays, and travel to their home village. So there is traffic chaos everywhere.

The best information I have found on the festival is at the following website.

http://www.nepalhomepage.com/society/festivals/dashain.html

Some information from the website
"The main celebration glorifies the triumph of good over evil and is symbolized by goddess Durga slaying the terrible demon Mahisasur, who terrorised the earth in the guise of a brutal water buffalo. The first nine days signify the nine days of ferrous battle between goddess Durga and the demon Mahisasur. The tenth day is the day when Mahisasur was slain and the last five days symbolise the celebration of the victory with the blessing of the goddess."

Also look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasain

On the tenth day, all the relatives travel to recieve tikka (rice mix with yoghurt and vermillion) on their forehead, jamara placed on top of the head, and are also given dakshina ( a gift of money )

The first image is of the front passageway of the home, that is used for the elder to place tikka on the forehead of all the families that will come.

The second image is of the elder of the family, Bodhraj's grandfather, with his great grand daughter, Bodhraj's niece.

The third image is of Bodhraj first recieving tikka on his forehead, the forth image of jamara placed on top of his head.

Next image (fifth image) is of me recieving tikka, then showing the results.

What also suprised me is that the tradition is to give dakshina, cash in an envelope. So sometimes you see the children tallying up the gifts by the end of the day. The seventh image shows the small children recieving dahshina.

As there are several families, who visit different elders, there maybe five or more family groups that visit one home at different times. So there were small periods of rest, then another family group would come. Various people would recieve tikka, there would be a mass of people taking photo's, then another period of rest.

The eighth image is of another family group recieving tikka.

The last image is of everyone resting at the end of the day.