सनातन पुस्तकालय Sanatan Cultural Library

Banashankari is Shakambhari, the form of the Devi who, tradition holds, fed a famine-stricken world from her own body with vegetables and greens — shaka meaning vegetable — and who destroyed the demon who had caused the suffering. At Cholachagudd she dwells amid the tilavana, the old forest near Badami, and so is Bana-Shankari, 'Shankari of the woods', affectionately Banadavva. Worship at this spot is old: the region was the heartland of the Chalukyas, whose first capital was Badami itself, and tradition holds the goddess was venerated here from their era, with the present temple a later rebuilding. Her murti, seated on a lion with demons beneath her feet, is of black stone, and she is the kuladevi — family goddess — of countless households across northern Karnataka and beyond, including many weaver and farming communities.

The jatre opens on Banada Hunnime, the Pushya full moon in January, when the goddess is taken in her towering wooden ratha through crowds that fill the village and fields. What follows is not a one-day event but a fair of nearly three weeks, one of the largest rural gatherings in Karnataka. Farming families arrive by tractor and bullock cart and camp around the temple; the grounds fill with stalls selling bangles, brass and copper vessels, textiles, agricultural implements, sweets and toys, and a cattle fair carries on the region's old trading traditions. On the Haridra Tirtha, the stepped tank before the temple, the goddess is floated on a decorated raft in the teppotsava as lamps burn along the water. Drama companies and folk performers — a jatre fixture for generations — stage all-night plays. Through it all, queues for darshana continue from before dawn.

For families from northern Karnataka, Banashankari is often the kuladevi, and her jatre is kept in the heart even at a distance. In Ottawa, the practical observance is a home pooja on Banada Hunnime — a lamp, haldi-kumkuma, flowers and a simple naivedya of cooked vegetables, fitting for Shakambhari — with the goddess's photograph. The site's panchang will show when Pushya Purnima falls in Ottawa's time zone. Many families ask relatives attending the jatre to offer a seva in their name, or follow the temple's festival days through photographs and video shared by family and by the temple's public channels. Those visiting India in January sometimes plan the Badami–Aihole–Pattadakal circuit so the trip coincides with the jatre.