Bhojpur & Purvanchal · Middle & Lower Gangetic Plain
Festivals
| Festival | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Chhath | Kartik (October–November) and Chaitra (March–April) | Four days of fasting and offerings to the setting and rising sun. No priest, no image, no temple. The region empties of its migrant workers in the week before it, and every railway line into Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh runs full. |
| Ramnagar Ramlila | Ashwin to Kartik (September–October), thirty-one nights | Staged across the whole town of Ramnagar with fixed locations for each episode, no amplification, and audiences who follow the action on foot by lamplight — running annually since the 1830s. |
| Dev Deepawali | Kartik Purnima (November) | Lakhs of oil lamps set along every step of every Varanasi ghat on the full moon after Diwali, with the river lit end to end. The single most photographed night in the region. |
| Masaan Holi | A few days before Holi, at Manikarnika | Ash from the cremation pyres is thrown like colour at the burning ground, on the reasoning that Shiva plays Holi with the dead. It is exactly as unsettling and exactly as celebratory as it sounds. |
| Sonepur Mela | Kartik Purnima (November), for a fortnight or more | A cattle and horse fair at the Ganga–Gandak confluence, historically the largest animal fair in Asia, with a bathing festival attached and a trade that once included elephants. |
| Nag Nathaiya and Bharat Milap | Kartik (October–November) | Two Varanasi enactments with fixed sites and centuries of continuity — Krishna subduing the serpent at Tulsi Ghat, and the reunion of Rama and Bharat at Nati Imli, watched by lakhs for a few minutes. |
| Buddha Purnima at Sarnath | Vaishakh (April–May) | Processions and all-night observance at the site of the first sermon. |
| Khichdi Mela at Gorakhnath | Makar Sankranti (January) | Pilgrims offer khichdi to Gorakhnath over several days, in one of the largest winter fairs of eastern Uttar Pradesh. |
The festival calendar of Bhojpur & Purvanchal — what is celebrated, when it falls and what happens. (8)