Fulpati being observed today

By A Staff Reporter,Kathmandu, Oct. 21: Fulpati is being taken into the homes as per the tradition on Saturday, the seventh day of the Bada Dashian festival, throughout the country. 

Fulpati, an assortment of flowers, banana leaves, ginger plants, sugarcane plants and fruits, is anointed at houses and Dashain Ghars. 

A team of eight members from Sarduljung Company and Hanumandhoka Durbar Herchaha Adda departed towards Gorkha on Friday to bring the Fulpati, said Sandeep Khanal, executive director of Hanumandhoka Durbar Museum Development Committee.  

They stayed at Jeevanpur in Dhading on Friday evening and sacrificed sheep and he-goats there. They collected Belpatra, (leaves of stone apple) and other new leaves of several plants and returned after meeting with a team which came from Gorkha Durbar to hand over the Fulpati.  

A palanquin with Fulpati will return to the Hanumandhoka in Kathmandu on the seventh day of Dashain on Saturday. 

A team of Gurujyuko Platoon, Nepal Army, Nepal Police with band music, panchebaja bands are sent to Jamal with a decorated palanquin and Kalash to bring the Fulpati. A procession along with cultural pageantry returns to Hanumandhoka from Jamal with the Fulpati. 

Sugarcane stems, turmeric, banana stalks, plants of paddy, Belpatra and other plants tied with a red cloth along with Kalash filled with holy water are set up on a decorated palanquin.

The decorated palanquin will be brought to the Dashain Ghar of Hanumandhoka on Saturday evening after the Nepali Army concludes a special military function at Tundikhel. 

Prithvi Narayan Shah, the unifier of modern Nepal, started the tradition of bringing Fulpati to Kathmandu from Gorkha, and it continues to this day.