Devalok
Festival story · 2 tellings · Pan-India, The Himalaya

Nanda goes to Kailash as a bride

Every twelve years Garhwal and Kumaon walk the mountain goddess Nanda three weeks from her mother's home to Shiva's Kailash as a young bride.

Who is in it

  • Nanda Devi the goddess as daughter and bride
  • Shiva the bridegroom at Kailash

The story, beat by beat

  1. Nanda, the Himalaya's daughter, lives in Garhwal as in her mother's home.
  2. Once in twelve years the villages prepare to send her back to her husband's house on Kailash.
  3. A four-horned ram appears and is taken as the sign to start.
  4. The procession walks for three weeks through Chamoli, carrying the goddess in a palanquin and singing of her leaving.
  5. Kumaon's Nanda of Almora sometimes joins.
  6. At the end the ram is released toward the high snows and the goddess is given over to Shiva.

marriage procession daughter mountain

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Folk documentation

Garhwali and Kumaoni folk songs and jagar

The Himalaya · Chamoli, Uttarakhand; Almora Folk Garhwali and Kumaoni

In the hills of Uttarakhand Nanda Devi is not only a peak and a goddess but a daughter of the region, and the Raj Jat treats her the way a village treats a bride. Every twelve years, when a four-horned ram is born as the sign, a procession sets out from Nauti in Chamoli and walks for about three weeks, carrying the goddess in her palanquin and singing the songs a bride's family sings at her leaving. Her mother's home is here; her husband's is Kailash, and the songs and jagar tellings make her at once goddess, daughter and young wife going to Shiva. Kumaon kept its own Nanda-Sunanda fairs and on occasion sent Almora's Nanda to join the march. The ram is finally let go toward the snows, carrying her offerings.

Nanda Devi Raj Jat — Wikipedia; Nanda Devi Raj Jat Yatra

Encyclopedia

Puranic Parvati's wedding

Pan-India Shaiva

The Puranas marry Parvati, daughter of Himavat, to Shiva at Himalaya's palace after her long austerities, with the gods as wedding guests.

What is different here:

The Puranic wedding happens once; the Raj Jat repeats the sending-off every twelve years as a village ritual, and Shiva is a mountain bridegroom rather than a cosmic lord.

Nanda Devi Raj Jat — Wikipedia

Sources: Nanda Devi Raj Jat — Wikipedia; Nanda Devi Raj Jat Yatra

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