Utkal · Eastern Coastal Plains

Festivals

Festival	When	What happens
Ratha Jatra	Asadha Sukla Dwitiya, June–July	The three deities are carried out of the temple in the swaying pahandi procession and installed on three chariots — Nandighosa for Jagannath with sixteen wheels, Taladhwaja for Balabhadra with fourteen, and Darpadalana for Subhadra with twelve — which are then pulled by hand along the Bada Danda to the Gundicha temple, where the deities stay nine days before returning. The Gajapati sweeps the chariot platforms before the pulling begins. The chariots are built new every year from freshly felled timber to dimensions recorded in the temple's own manuals, by hereditary carpenter families, beginning at Akshaya Tritiya.
Snana Jatra and anasara	Jyestha Purnima, May–June	The deities are bathed on an open platform with a hundred and eight pots of water drawn from a well inside the temple, then withdrawn from view for a fortnight during which they are held to be unwell. Painted cloth panels stand in for them and the pilgrim traffic diverts to Alarnath.
Nabakalebara	In years with two months of Asadha, at intervals of roughly twelve to nineteen years	The wooden images are replaced. Parties of servitors travel to locate neem trees carrying prescribed marks, the trees are felled and brought to the temple, new images are carved in a closed enclosure, and the transfer from old to new is done at night by blindfolded Daitapatis. The old images are buried inside the precinct.
Bali Jatra	From Kartik Purnima, October–November	A week-long fair on the Mahanadi bank at Cuttack commemorating the sadhaba merchants who sailed from this coast to Bali, Java, Sumatra and Sri Lanka. It is a coastal festival and belongs to the delta, not to the interior; it is among the largest open-air fairs in the country, and it commemorates a trade that ended centuries ago.
Boita Bandana	Kartik Purnima, at dawn	Small boats of paper, banana bark or sola pith carrying a lamp and betel are floated on tanks and rivers by women at first light, with a chant. It is the domestic half of the same memory that Bali Jatra is the public half of.
Raja Parba	Mid-June, three days at the onset of the monsoon	The earth is held to be menstruating; no ploughing, digging or sowing is done. Swings are hung, girls do not walk barefoot, and poda pitha is made. A festival that formalises a rest period at exactly the point in the year when the soil is about to be worked hardest.
Durga Puja at Cuttack	Aswina, September–October	Distinguished from every other Durga Puja by its backdrops — the city's pandals mount medhas of worked silver and gold filigree, made and re-made by Cuttack's own tarakasi workshops, and the competition between neighbourhoods is over metalwork as much as over the image.
Dola Purnima and the melana	Phalguna, February–March	Village deities are carried out on vimanas and taken from village to village to meet each other at a melana ground, with colour thrown, songs sung and the palanquins made to dance towards one another.
Pana Sankranti	Mid-April	The Odia new year. Pana — jaggery, curd, coconut and fruit — is drunk and offered, a pot with a small hole is hung to drip water onto a tulsi plant through the hot months, and the year's almanac is read out publicly.
Prathamastami and Kumar Purnima	Margasira, and Aswina Purnima	Prathamastami honours the eldest child of a household with enduri pitha steamed in turmeric leaf. Kumar Purnima is the unmarried girls' full moon, with offerings at moonrise and again at moonset and the puchi game played through the night.
Konark Festival and the sand art at Chandrabhaga	Early December	Five nights of classical dance staged against the Sun Temple, with an international sand sculpture event on the beach alongside it. A modern platform, and the most reliable place to see Odissi performed near the sculpture it was reconstructed from.

The festival calendar of Utkal — what is celebrated, when it falls and what happens. (11)