Kathmandu's Biggest Street Festival Has a Stone Demon That Spits Rice Beer Into the Crowd

Once a year, a carved stone face in Kathmandu's Durbar Square starts dispensing rice beer to a crowd standing directly beneath it, and nobody finds this strange. That is Indra Jatra, Kathmandu's biggest and oldest street festival, and in 2026 it runs from Friday, September 25 to Friday, October 2 — eight days centred on the old royal palace complex at Hanuman Dhoka.

The festival honours Indra, the Vedic king of heaven and god of rain, at the point in the Nepali calendar — the waxing moon of Bhadra into Ashwin — when the monsoon should be finishing and the harvest is close. Raising the Yosin pole in front of Hanuman Dhoka is the ritual invitation: a single tree trunk set upright as a line between heaven and earth, asking Indra down to bless the coming season before it is lowered again eight days later to close the festival.

The costumed cast is the part visitors remember. The Majipa Lakhey — a red-faced guardian demon danced only once a year, in a papier-mâché mask and a costume that can weigh up to 50 kilograms — moves through the crowd protecting children, part terrifying and part beloved. Alongside him, Sweta Bhairav's mask pours Newari rice beer from a pipe fixed at its mouth, and devotees queue to catch it. And for three of the eight days, the living goddess Kumari is carried through the old city on a gilded wooden chariot alongside the deities Ganesh and Bhairav, pulled by hundreds of hands — a procession first established by King Jayaprakash Malla in the 18th century that unified the city's kings with its oldest living tradition, and is still the one moment each year the Kumari leaves her palace for the street.

What this means for trekkers

Most visitors see Indra Jatra as bookends to a trek rather than the whole trip: fly in, catch the festival, then head for the hills once the chariots are put away. A Kathmandu Valley cultural tour covers Durbar Square and the surrounding Newar towns properly rather than rushing them between processions, while a single Kathmandu day tour works if the festival is a stopover before you fly onward to a trek.

Sources: Wikipedia (Indra Jatra), Nepal Hiking Team, PublicHolidays.asia, Third Rock Adventures.

Cover photo: SuyogyaRT via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).