Janai Purnima & Raksha Bandhan (Gunhu Punhi / Kwati Purnima)

Janai Purnima, also called Rakshya Bandhan and, in the Newar community, Gunhu Punhi or Kwati Purnima, is celebrated on the full-moon day of the Nepali month of Shrawan (Shrawan Shukla Purnima). It is one of the most widely observed festivals of Nepal's monsoon season and is marked by Hindus, Buddhists and other communities across the hills and the Kathmandu Valley.

Because it follows the lunar calendar, the Gregorian (AD) date shifts each year. In Bikram Sambat (BS) 2082 the festival fell on Shrawan 24, corresponding to Saturday, 9 August 2025. In BS 2083 the Shrawan full moon is reckoned on Bhadra 12 in the solar Nepali calendar, corresponding to Friday, 28 August 2026. Exact dates should always be checked against the official panchang, as tithi timings can push observance by a day.

The single word 'Purnima' means full moon, and this particular full moon carries several layers of meaning at once: it is the day the sacred thread (janai) is renewed, the day sisters tie the rakhi on their brothers, the day the protective doro is bound on the wrist, and the day Newars eat kwati. For that reason a single Shrawan full moon can appear on the calendar under half a dozen names.

For Brahmin and Chhetri men who have undergone the Bratabandha (sacred-thread initiation), Janai Purnima is the appointed day to replace the janai, the triple-corded cotton thread worn over the left shoulder and across the body. The thread is a symbol of ritual purity, self-discipline and duty; the three strands are commonly explained as reminders of body, speech and mind, or of one's debts to teachers, ancestors and sages.

On the morning of the festival, the wearer bathes, observes purity rules, and has a priest or family elder recite Vedic mantras while the old janai is discarded and a fresh one is put on. Many men fast until the ritual is complete. In the Newar community the day is likewise an occasion to change the janai, showing how the tradition crosses caste and community lines within the valley.

The renewal is timed to Rishitarpani (see below), so that changing the thread and honouring the sages happen as part of one continuous morning observance at a river, pond or temple tank.

The same full moon is Raksha Bandhan, the festival of the protective bond. Sisters tie a decorative rakhi thread around their brothers' wrists as a symbol of love and lifelong protection, and brothers in turn offer gifts and pledge to look after their sisters. In Nepal this sibling ritual is celebrated alongside, rather than separately from, the janai tradition.

For the wider public who do not wear the janai, the day's most visible custom is the raksha doro, a yellow (or red-and-yellow) cotton thread that a priest ties on the right wrist of men and the left wrist of women. It is believed to protect the wearer through the year. Tradition holds that the doro is untied and offered to a cow, or tied to the tail of a cow, on the following Laxmi Puja during Tihar.

Because the rakhi, the janai and the doro are all knotted threads of protection given on the same day, the words Rakshya Bandhan and Janai Purnima are often used interchangeably in Nepal, even though they name different customs.

In the Newar community the Shrawan full moon is Gunhu Punhi (also spelled Gunhi Punhi or Guni Punhi), the full-moon day of Gunla, the sacred tenth month of the Nepal Era lunar calendar. It is best known nationally as Kwati Khane Din, 'the day for eating kwati'.

Kwati is a thick, spiced soup of nine varieties of sprouted beans. The beans, commonly including black gram, green gram, chickpea, field bean, soybean, field pea, garden pea, cowpea and rice bean, are soaked for three to four days until they germinate, then cooked with generous spices. Eating kwati at the height of the monsoon is regarded as both a delicacy and a health food, traditionally believed to build strength and immunity during the damp, disease-prone rainy season.

Gunhu Punhi carries other Newar customs too. In many households a protective thread is tied on the wrist, and in a well-loved agrarian ritual families offer kwati and roti to frogs, whose croaking heralds the rains, in thanks for a timely monsoon that lets the paddy be planted. The day sits within Gunla, a month of special Buddhist devotion in the valley.

The greatest pilgrimage of the day is to Gosaikunda (Gosainkunda), a high alpine lake at about 4,380 metres in Rasuwa district, inside Langtang National Park, northwest of Kathmandu. According to the Nepal Tourism Board the lake is a major Hindu pilgrimage site and the source of the Trishuli river; myth holds it was formed when Lord Shiva struck the mountain with his trident to quench his thirst after swallowing poison.

On Janai Purnima tens of thousands of pilgrims, along with jhankris (shamans) drumming and dancing, trek up to bathe in the icy water and change their janai, in the belief that a dip washes away sins and liberates ancestors. Reported turnout in a typical year ranges widely, often cited in the tens of thousands. The sacred pond at the Kumbheshwar temple in Patan, a five-storey pagoda attributed to King Jayasthiti Malla in the 14th century, is believed to be fed by Gosaikunda, and it too hosts one of the valley's largest Janai Purnima melas for those who cannot make the mountain trek.

Rishitarpani is the accompanying rite in which janai-wearers offer tarpan, libations of water, to the Saptarishi, the seven great sages of Vedic tradition. Performed at dawn in a river or pond, it acknowledges the 'debt to the sages' from whom scriptural knowledge descends, which is why Janai Purnima is also observed in Nepal as Sanskrit Day (Sanskrit Diwas).

Janai Purnima / Rakshya Bandhan is a gazetted public holiday in Nepal, included in the annual list of public holidays issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA). In BS 2082 the holiday fell on Shrawan 24 (9 August 2025). Government offices, banks and schools close for the day, though the exact roster of who gets the holiday can vary by province and by year.

A typical observance begins with an early bath and, for the initiated, renewal of the janai and Rishitarpani at a river or temple tank; priests then tie the raksha doro on visitors' wrists in exchange for a small offering. Households cook and share kwati, and siblings exchange rakhi and gifts. Many families combine the day with a visit to a Shiva temple such as Pashupatinath, Kumbheshwar or Doleshwar, and the more devout undertake the Gosaikunda pilgrimage.

Falling in the middle of the monsoon and near the start of the paddy-planting season, the festival blends spiritual renewal, family bonding and seasonal nutrition, which is much of the reason it remains one of Nepal's most inclusive celebrations across Hindu, Buddhist and Newar communities alike.