Tulu Nadu · Western Coastal Strip
Festivals
| Festival | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Paryaya | 18 January, every second year | The handover of the worship of Krishna at Udupi from one of the eight mathas to the next, in a fixed rotation that gives each head a two-year term. The incoming swami enters at dawn in procession; the town rebuilds itself around the event for months beforehand. |
| Bhuta Kola and Nema season | December–May, dates fixed shrine by shrine | Not one festival but several thousand — each daivasthana holds its own on its own night, funded by the household or village that owns it. There is no central calendar, which is why the season is best approached through a specific shrine rather than a date. |
| Kambala season | November–March | Around forty-five organised races down flooded paddy tracks, run by local committees, with paired buffaloes and a runner behind them. Banned by the Supreme Court in 2014 on animal-welfare grounds and restored by a Karnataka amendment to the central Act in 2017–18, since when the sport has run under conditions. |
| Aati Amavasya | The new moon of Aati (July–August) | Bark of the paale tree is pounded, soaked and drunk as a bitter decoction at dawn on an empty stomach, taken as the year's medicine. The rest of the month is kept clear of weddings and new undertakings. |
| Mangaluru Dasara at Kudroli | September–October, nine nights | Nine nights of processions built around the Kudroli temple, with Karadi Vesha troupes, tableaux and enormous street crowds — a festival created in the twentieth century by a community that had been excluded from the older ones. |
| Monti Fest | 8 September | The Mangalorean Catholic harvest feast — nine days of novena, flowers brought to the church by children, new corn blessed and mixed into a vegetarian family meal eaten together. One of the few Catholic feasts anywhere at which the household meal is meatless by rule. |
| Bisu Parba | Mid-April | The Tulu new year, kept with an arrangement of grain, fruit, gold and a mirror set out to be the first thing seen on waking — the same observance Kerala keeps as Vishu, on the same day, under a different name. |
| Kodial Theru | January | The car festival of the Venkataramana temple at Mangaluru, the Konkani Gaud Saraswat community's largest public occasion, when the chariot is pulled through the old town. |
| Siri Jatre | February–April, full moon nights | Women gather at Siri shrines through the night and enter possession collectively, speaking as the women of the Siri epic. Attendance runs into the hundreds at the larger sites. |
The festival calendar of Tulu Nadu — what is celebrated, when it falls and what happens. (9)