Desh · Deccan Inland Plateau
Festivals
| Festival | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Ashadhi Wari and Ashadhi Ekadashi | Ashadh Shukla Ekadashi, June–July | Dnyaneshwar's palkhi leaves Alandi and Tukaram's leaves Dehu, converge on Pune and then take separate routes — one via Saswad, Jejuri, Lonand, Phaltan and Natepute, the other via Akluj and Malshiras — covering roughly 250 km in about 21 days to arrive at Pandharpur on Ekadashi. Walkers travel in dindis of a few dozen to several hundred, each with its own flag, cooks and place in the order; they sing abhangas and Haripath as they walk, halt at fixed villages that have hosted the same dindis for generations, and hold ringan circles on open ground where a riderless horse runs. Around a million people reach Pandharpur, which makes it one of the largest annual pedestrian pilgrimages in the world. Nothing is ticketed and there is no central organiser; the route works because the halts, the order and the catering are customary. |
| Kartiki Ekadashi | Kartik Shukla Ekadashi, November | The second and slightly smaller of Pandharpur's two great gatherings, held in dry weather rather than in the monsoon, and the one most Varkari households from the eastern dryland attend. |
| Ganeshotsav | Bhadrapada, August–September, for ten days | A household festival that Bal Gangadhar Tilak turned into a public one at Pune in 1893 by organising sarvajanik mandals — an explicitly political move to create legal mass assembly. Pune's five manache Ganpatis process in a fixed order of precedence on immersion day, and the order has not changed in over a century. |
| Jejuri Somvati Amavasya and Champa Shashthi | Any new moon falling on a Monday; Champa Shashthi in Margashirsha (November–December) | Turmeric is thrown by the sackful over the palanquins and over the crowd, and the deity's palkhi is taken down to the Karha river. On Champa Shashthi a six-day cycle closes with the Khandoba-Banai marriage narrative performed and sung. |
| Kolhapur Navratri and Kiranotsav | Ashwin (September–October); Kiranotsav in late January and early November | Nine nights of processions and palanquins at the Ambabai temple, and separately a three-day solar alignment when the setting sun reaches the image through the west doorway. |
| Shivjayanti | 19 February by the Gregorian calendar, and separately on the tithi in Phalgun | Shivaji's birth anniversary, observed at Shivneri and across the region with povada performances and processions. It is observed twice because the tithi-based and date-based reckonings were never reconciled. |
| Nag Panchami at Battis Shirala | Shravan Shukla Panchami, July–August | A snake-worship fair historically known for the public handling of live cobras. That practice has been restricted since a Bombay High Court order in the early 2000s and the enforcement of wildlife law, and the fair now runs largely with images and processions. |
| Bail Pola | Shravan Amavasya, August | Bullocks are washed, painted, horn-tipped and paraded, and are not worked that day. In a plateau economy that still depends on draught animals for dryland tillage, it is a working festival rather than a symbolic one. |
| Gudi Padwa and Sankrant | Chaitra Shukla Pratipada (March–April); Makar Sankranti (14–15 January) | A bamboo pole with an inverted pot and a silk cloth is raised at the door for the Marathi new year; at Sankrant, sesame-and-jaggery tilgul is exchanged with the formula tilgul ghya, god god bola — take sesame and jaggery, and speak sweetly. |
| Mangalagaur | Tuesdays of Shravan | Newly married women hold an all-night session of sung games in the first five years of marriage, at the natal or marital home, with no audience beyond the participants. |
The festival calendar of Desh — what is celebrated, when it falls and what happens. (10)