Indra's pole: the banner festival and Indra Jatra

Indra comes down to the Kathmandu Valley, hidden in cloud and looking like an ordinary man, to pick parijat flowers his mother needs for a rite. The townspeople catch him, bind him hand and foot like a thief and display him. His elephant searches the streets; his mother descends and reveals who he is. Released, the people are granted that she take the souls of that year's dead to heaven, and she adds the morning mist of autumn and winter that ripens the crops. In Doig's telling the chain of souls holding her garment breaks and they fall into a mountain lake. The festival raises a pole from Nala, shows bound Indra images, runs the wicker elephant Pulu Kisi and walks the Dagin procession.

The encyclopedia article notes that Bhaktapur keeps the days differently, with Yama Dyah poles, sky lamps and a procession to the pond Siddha Pokhari, traditionally linked with the name Indra Daha, and that Khokana raises its own pole with statues of Indra.

Canto 1 of the Buddhist Tamil epic says a Chola king, on the advice of Agastya of the Malaya hill, obtained that Indra be present in Puhar for twenty-eight days each year. The elders fear that the guardian deities of the square and the bazaar will trouble the city if the festival is forgotten. The drum is taken from the temple of the thunderbolt, set on the royal elephant and beaten to announce it; citizens are told to decorate streets, spread fresh sand, hoist flags and keep the peace while gods and men move about together.