Crowds thronged Kathmandu’s traditional market areas on Saturday as households prepared to bring home Phulpati, an important ritual marking the seventh day of Dashain.
Maru Ganesh, Asan and Indra Chowk were busy from early morning, with shoppers buying flowers, sacred leaves, sugarcane, ginger plants and other items needed for the ceremony.
The markets grew busier as families made preparations to welcome Phulpati into their homes, a longstanding religious and cultural tradition observed during Nepal’s biggest Hindu festival.
The plants and flowers used in the ritual, including sacred leaves, sugarcane, ginger and banana plants, carry religious and cultural significance. Families traditionally gather the required items and perform the ceremony according to established customs, driving up demand for these offerings in markets across the city.
For Kathmandu’s traditional markets, the preparations bring a seasonal surge in shoppers as families stock up on ritual supplies ahead of the festivities.
Phulpati falls on the seventh day of the bright lunar fortnight in the month of Ashwin. The ritual involves bringing an assortment of flowers, leaves and plants into the home and placing them in the Dashain shrine, where they are worshipped as part of the devotion to Goddess Durga. The ceremony is associated with prayers for happiness, peace and prosperity.
Nepal Photo Library is a Kathmandu-based news photography agency.
