From Dashain to Tihar: The Festivals of Nepal
Imagine streets glowing with oil lamps, doorways decorated with intricate designs made of colored powder, and the sound of traditional songs wafting through the evening air. Picture grandparents pressing a red blessing mark on the foreheads of grandchildren, whispering wishes for health and prosperity. This is festival season, and it’s one of the most extraordinary times of year in Nepal.
Dashain and Tihar are Nepal's two most beloved celebrations. These festivals bring families together, influence the rhythm of Nepal’s education calendar, and carry deep meaning for Nepali communities around the world.
Dashain: Blessings, Family, and the Pause in Learning
Dashain is Nepal's longest and most widely celebrated festival. Based on the lunar calendar, it is observed over 15 days in September or October. It honors the goddess Durga and the victory of good over evil. At its heart is the tika and jamara ceremony, where elders place a red mixture of vermillion, rice, and yogurt on the foreheads of younger family members, offering blessings that carry enormous emotional weight across generations.
The festival unfolds in ways that teach deeply held values through participation rather than instruction:
Family reunion: Families reunite from across the country and the world, reinforcing the communal bonds that hold them together.
Living tradition: Younger generations learn the art of making jamara, a sacred grass grown in darkness and offered during blessings, connecting them to their ancient agricultural and spiritual traditions.
Kite flying: Kites fill the skies throughout the season, a beloved tradition that brings neighborhoods together and marks the celebration with joy, freedom, and the arrival of clear autumn weather after the rainy season.
Ritual knowledge: Elders pass down the specific prayers, rituals, and sequences of the ceremony, preserving knowledge that lives in experiences and practices rather than in books.
Culinary heritage: The preparation of elaborate traditional foods is a form of cultural transmission, with recipes and techniques moving from older to younger hands.
For Nepal’s students, the Dashain festival is also a significantly long break in the academic calendar. Schools and universities close during those holidays, and examinations are planned around the break.
Evolving from rural and “local” communal celebrations, this long holiday does not sit well with today’s academic demands and pressures. Critics also argue that homework assignments can crowd out the cultural learning that makes the season so meaningful. This has prompted discussion about learning continuity, especially for students who face additional logistical challenges when traveling home to rural areas, and travel in a country with eight of the world’s top ten highest peaks, with few roads across the mountainous terrain.
Tihar: Light, Gratitude, and Tradition
Tihar is the festival of lights. This five-day celebration arrives roughly two weeks after Dashain, transforming Nepal into a luminous, joyful place. Homes are outlined in glowing lamps, floors are covered in intricate designs made from colored powder and flower petals, and the goddess of wealth and fortune is welcomed into every household.
Each day of Tihar honors a different being, and the progression reveals something important about Nepali culture: that gratitude extends far beyond the human world.
Day one: Families feed crows as bearers of news from the spirit world.
Day two: Communities celebrate dogs for their loyalty and companionship.
Day three: Cows are offered prayers and food in the morning, and the Goddess Laxmi is offered elaborate prayers and ‘puja’ (worship) in the evening.
Day four: Oxen are recognized for their role in sustaining agricultural life.
Day five: Brothers and sisters exchange blessings in a deeply personal family ritual.
Nepali students learn traditional songs and dances and perform in neighborhood groups that go door to door in the evenings. They build musical memory, performance confidence, and a sense of belonging. The elaborate floor designs passed down through families develop artistic skill and patience.
Most importantly, Tihar teaches gratitude toward animals, care for family bonds, and a deeper connection to the natural world.
Festivals as Informal Education
Both festivals are powerful vehicles for transmitting the languages, ethics, and family values that classrooms rarely have space to teach. Children learn respect for elders through the tika ceremony. They learn generosity through gift-giving and the exchange of blessings and food. They learn that living beings deserve dignity through Tihar's daily rituals.
The debate over Dashain homework points to a bigger question in Nepali education: what counts as learning? Festival participation teaches ethics, identity, ritual, and relationships in ways that are deeply experiential. Across many cultures, celebration and education have always been closely intertwined.
The Nepali Diaspora: Celebrating on Campus
Nepali culture travels. An estimated five to six million Nepalis now live outside Nepal, representing roughly 17 to 20 percent of the country's population. The Nepali diaspora has significant communities in India, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
As more Nepali students pursue degrees abroad, they carry these festivals with them onto university campuses around the world. Nepali Student Associations have become a familiar presence at universities across the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and beyond, organizing Dashain and Tihar events that serve as both cultural preservation and genuine community-building. These gatherings also become bridges, inviting non-Nepali classmates into conversations about Nepali students' traditions, histories, and values.
Where Culture and Education Meet
When the lamps are lit and the tika is pressed to the forehead, something larger than a holiday is happening. The festival season in Nepal is a different kind of classroom, where the lessons are about who we are, where we come from, and how we care for one another.
For those of Nepali descent living abroad, these festivals are a connection to home and an opportunity to model cultural pride for the next generation. Supporting young scholars from Nepal means ensuring that the values carried by Dashain and Tihar are not lost as Nepal changes and grows. Celebrating heritage and supporting education are, in the end, the same act.
Consider supporting a scholarship for a Nepali student who is working to build a future for themselves and their community.
At Tiyara, we seek to provide higher education scholarships that will make life-changing differences for under-resourced young women and men. Scholarships are also extended to young women and men who belong to indigenous populations living in remote areas or who have had their lives changed by discrimination because of crimes committed by a family member, or have lost a family member to a crime, and those who face discrimination because of their caste.
You can help make dreams come true by providing education for Tiyara’s scholars and helping to put a deserving young person through college! In doing so, you’ll propel not just one student, but the global community toward a brighter, more equitable future.