East & Northeast — Festivals, Vratas & Poojas — Sanatan Library

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🐚 East & Northeast — Festivals, Vratas & Poojas

The festivals, pujas and living traditions of Bengal, Odisha, Assam and the Northeast — their stories and how they are kept.

Festival

🐚 Basanti PujaBasanti Puja is the springtime worship of Goddess Durga, kept during the bright fortnight of Chaitra (March–April) alongside Chaitra Navratri. Regarded in Bengal as the original, older Durga Puja, it is a quieter, largely household and village observance compared with the great autumn festival.West Bengal 🐚 Durga Pujo (Bengal)Durga Pujo is Bengal's greatest festival — the five days from Shashthi to Vijaya Dashami in Ashwina (September–October) when Ma Durga is welcomed home with her children in magnificently crafted pandals across West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. Kolkata's celebration, inscribed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage, turns the whole city into an open-air gallery of art and devotion.West Bengal · Assam · Tripura 🐚 Jagaddhatri PujaJagaddhatri Puja honours Jagaddhatri, 'the bearer of the world', a serene golden form of Goddess Durga, on the ninth lunar day of bright Kartik (October–November). It is the crowning festival of Chandannagar and Krishnanagar in West Bengal, famed for towering images and spectacular illuminations.West Bengal 🐚 Jhulan YatraJhulan Yatra is the monsoon swing festival of Radha and Krishna, kept in the bright fortnight of Shravana (July–August) and culminating on Jhulan Purnima, the Raksha Bandhan full moon. In Bengal's Vaishnava centres and in Puri, ornamented swings are prepared and the deities are rocked each evening amid kirtan, flowers and lamps.West Bengal · Odisha 🐚 Kali PujoKali Pujo (Shyama Puja) is the great night-worship of the goddess Kali, kept on the new-moon night of Kartik — the same night much of India keeps Diwali's Lakshmi Puja. In West Bengal and Assam it is a festival of midnight aarti, blazing lamps, fireworks and elaborately sculpted pandal images of the dark goddess.West Bengal · Assam 🐚 Karma ParabKarma Parab, or the Karam festival, honours Karam Devta — the spirit of fortune and good work embodied in the karam tree — on Bhadrapada Shukla Ekadashi (August–September). Sisters keep a day's fast for their brothers' wellbeing, a karam branch is planted in the courtyard and worshipped through a night of song and dance, and germinated jawa shoots are shared as blessings.Jharkhand · Odisha · Chhattisgarh 🐚 Kati (Kongali) BihuKati or Kongali Bihu is the quiet, austere Bihu kept on the first day of the Assamese month of Kati in mid-October, when the granaries are empty and the paddy still stands green. Lamps are lit at the tulasi plant and in the fields, with prayers for the ripening crop.Assam 🐚 Kumar PurnimaKumar Purnima is Odisha's celebration of the autumn full moon of Ashwina, kept especially by unmarried girls who worship the Sun at dawn and the Moon at night, praying for a husband as handsome as Kumar (Kartikeya). It coincides with Sharad Purnima, usually in October.Odisha 🐚 Magh (Bhogali) BihuMagh or Bhogali Bihu is Assam's post-harvest feast at the Magh sankranti in mid-January, the Assamese counterpart of Makar Sankranti. Its heart is the Uruka night feast in bamboo bhelaghars and the burning of the meji bonfire at dawn.Assam 🐚 NuakhaiNuakhai is western Odisha's great harvest festival, when the first grains of the new rice crop are offered to the presiding goddess before anyone eats them. It falls on Bhadrapada Shukla Panchami, the day after Ganesh Chaturthi, usually in August or September.Odisha 🐚 Poila BoishakhPoila Boishakh is the Bengali New Year, the first day of the solar month of Boishakh, falling in mid-April. In West Bengal and Tripura it is kept with new clothes, sweets, cultural processions and the haal khata — the traders' ceremonial opening of fresh account books blessed before Ganesha and Lakshmi.West Bengal · Tripura 🐚 Raja ParbaRaja Parba (pronounced 'raw-jaw') is Odisha's three-to-four-day monsoon festival around Mithuna Sankranti in mid-June, honouring the annual menstruation of Bhudevi, Mother Earth, and celebrating girlhood and womanhood. Farm work pauses, the earth rests, and girls in new clothes swing on flower-decked rope swings and feast on podapitha.Odisha 🐚 Rongali (Bohag) BihuRongali or Bohag Bihu is the Assamese New Year festival, opening the month of Bohag at the spring sankranti in mid-April. Its days honour the cattle, the family and the community in turn, with bihu dance and song, gamosa gifting and feasts of pitha and laru.Assam 🐚 SarhulSarhul is the great spring festival of Jharkhand's Adivasi communities — Oraon, Munda, Ho and others — worshipping the blossoming sal tree in the sacred sarna grove as the new year opens. It is kept on Chaitra Shukla Tritiya (March–April), when the village priest, the pahan, offers sal flowers and prayers for rain, harvest and the wellbeing of all.Jharkhand 🐚 Tusu ParabTusu Parab is the month-long winter harvest festival of the Kudmi (Kurmi) and neighbouring communities of Jharkhand and the Purulia region of West Bengal, honouring Tusu, a beloved folk goddess imagined as a young maiden. Evening Tusu songs fill the month of Poush, and the festival culminates on Makar Sankranti when decorated chaudal shrines are carried in procession and immersed in rivers.Jharkhand · West Bengal 🐚 YaoshangYaoshang is Manipur's five-day spring festival, the Meitei counterpart of Holi, beginning on the full moon of Lamta (Phalguna, February–March). It blends Krishna worship in the Chaitanya Vaishnava tradition with uniquely Manipuri customs such as the thabal chongba moonlight dance and week-long community sports.Manipur

Vrata

🐚 Manabasa GurubaraManabasa Gurubara is the Odia women's vrata of the Thursdays of Margashira (November–December), when Maha Lakshmi is welcomed into the cleaned and decorated home as the new harvest itself. Floors are adorned with jhoti chita rice-paste art and the mana measure is filled with fresh paddy for worship.Odisha 🐚 PrathamastamiPrathamastami is the Odia household observance for the long life and prosperity of the firstborn child, kept on the eighth day of the dark fortnight of Margashira (November–December). Mothers perform arati for the eldest child, worship Shashthi Devi, and steam the famous enduri pitha.Odisha

Pooja

🐚 Annapurna PujaAnnapurna Puja is the Bengali worship of Goddess Annapurna, the Mother as the giver of food, kept on Chaitra Shukla Ashtami (March–April) during the Basanti Puja fortnight. Homes and temples worship the golden goddess with her rice-ladle, and the day turns on the sanctity of food and the vow that no one should go hungry.West Bengal 🐚 Vishwakarma PujaVishwakarma Puja honours Vishwakarma, the divine architect and engineer of the gods, on Kanya Sankranti — a rare fixed solar date falling on or about 17 September. Across eastern India, factories, workshops, garages and offices worship his image alongside their tools and machines, and the skies of Bengal fill with kites.West Bengal · Odisha · Jharkhand · Assam

Temple Festival

🐚 Ambubachi Mela (Kamakhya)Ambubachi Mela is the annual gathering at the Kamakhya temple in Guwahati during the days in the month of Ahaar (June) when the goddess is believed to undergo her yearly menstruation. The temple closes for three days and reopens on the fourth to vast crowds of devotees, sadhus and tantric practitioners.Assam 🐚 Chandan YatraChandan Yatra is the 42-day sandalwood festival of Lord Jagannath at Puri, beginning on Akshaya Tritiya (April–May). Through the hottest weeks of the year the Lord's festive images are anointed with cooling sandal paste and, for the first 21 evenings, taken on decorated boat rides across the Narendra tank.Odisha 🐚 Kharchi PujaKharchi Puja is Tripura's week-long festival of the Chaturdasha Devata, the fourteen tutelary deities of the old royal house, held at their temple in Old Agartala from Ashadha Shukla Ashtami (July). Rooted in the cleansing of Mother Earth after her annual ambubachi, it draws Tripuri and Bengali devotees alike.Tripura 🐚 Puri Rath YatraThe Puri Rath Yatra is the world-famous chariot festival of Lord Jagannath, held on Ashadha Shukla Dwitiya (June–July), when Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra ride three colossal wooden chariots from the Puri temple to the Gundicha temple. Pulling the chariot ropes is held to be a supreme act of devotion, open to all.Odisha 🐚 Snana YatraSnana Yatra is the grand bathing festival of Lord Jagannath, held on the full moon of Jyeshtha (May–June), when Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra are bathed in public with 108 pots of scented water. It is the deities' first full public appearance of the ritual year and the prelude to the Rath Yatra.Odisha

Community Festival

🐚 Bali JatraBali Jatra is Cuttack's great riverside fair commemorating the ancient Odia mariners, the Sadhabas, who sailed to Bali and other lands of Southeast Asia. It opens on Kartik Purnima (November) on the banks of the Mahanadi and runs for over a week.Odisha 🐚 Dhanu JatraDhanu Jatra is the famed open-air theatre festival of Bargarh in western Odisha, in which an entire town and its surroundings become the stage for the Krishna–Kansa story. It is held for about eleven days in the month of Pausha, ending on Pausha Purnima (December–January).Odisha

Ritual & Observance

🐚 Gajan & Charak PujaGajan is the austere folk festival of Shiva that closes the Bengali year in the last days of Chaitra (mid-April), culminating in Charak Puja on Chaitra Sankranti. Village devotees called sannyasis take temporary vows of renunciation and perform demanding austerities — fire rituals, body-piercing and the famous Charak swing — as offerings to Shiva.West Bengal 🐚 Lai HaraobaLai Haraoba, "the merrymaking of the gods", is the great ritual festival of the Meitei people of Manipur, honouring the Umang Lai, the ancestral sylvan deities, with days of ceremonial dance, chant and re-enactment of the creation. Each shrine holds its own festival, most commonly in the spring and early summer months (April–June).Manipur