Nuakhai Festival | NUAKHAI JUHAR

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"NUAKHAI" is a harvest festival mostly celebrated in Estern Odisha. In the year 2023, this festival is on 20 th September.

Nuakhai-festival-western-odisha


NUAKHAI 2023

Nuakhai is normally celebrated on the panchami tithi in lunar fortnight (sukla pakhya) of vadrab month, the day after Ganesh Chaturthi. It normally falls in the month of August or September.

In the year 2023, it is on 20 September.

WHY NUAKHAI CELEBRATED

Nuakhai is an agricultural festival. This festival is celebrated to offer new paddy(rice) to Goddess. After the harvest of paddy, it was offered to Goddess Samaleswari, Patneswari (Goddess of western Odisha). All family members gathered together to celebrate this festival. This is the biggest festival in western Odisha.

WHO CELEBRATES NUAKHAI

Sambalpuri Nuakhai Juhar

Nukhai is a local festival of Odisha. It is celebrated all over Odisha but mostly people of Western Odisha celebrate with much fanfare. Districts like Sambalpur, Bolangir, Sundargarh, Kalahandi and some areas of Phulbani , this festival celebrated.
It is also celebrated in Western Odisha's neighboring area, Simdega in Jharkhand, where Odia culture is predominant.

HOW IS NUAKHAI CELEBRATED IN ODISHA

In this festival people offered `their new harvested paddy, family members gathered together to celebrate this festival.
The laddies clean the house and decorated it before Nuakhai. On the day of Naukhai, all family members wear new clothes.

Offerings In Nuakhai.

In this festival, the offerings are flattened rice which is newly cultivated. They soaked the flattened rice for 2 minutes, add sugar, grated coconut, ghee, banana to it called Nua. Offered the prasad to Goddess Samaleswari and Patneswari.
Also, different types of pitha(pancake and cakes) are made at this festival. Pithas like arisa, ras-bara, etc.

What is Nuakhai Vetghat

Nuakhai vetghat is a ritual of this festival. Nuakhai means eating new and vetghat means to meet each other. So in this festival family members gathered together in their home town, hugged each other, and eat the new paddy(rice) after offering it to Goddess.
This ritual is known as Nuakhai vetghat.

What is Nuakhai Juhar

After taking the prasad(nua) the younger family members touch the feet of elder family members(Jauhar in local language) and take their blessings. This is known as Nuakhai Juhar.

NUAKHAI FOODS

At this festival, special foods are also prepared. Its commonly known as Nuakhai Thali. All food items prepaired without onion and garlic and offered to Goddess.

    The food items includes the thali is
  1. Steamed rice
  2. Moong Dal
  3. Ghanta (mix-veg)
  4. Kheer (make with rice and milk)
  5. Arisa Pitha
  6. Cakere Pitha
  7. Sweet moong dal vada
  8. Differnt types of bhaja(vegetable stirfry)
  9. Nua(flattened rice mixed with sugar,curd,grated coconut,banana, ghee etc.

NUAKHAI CULTURAL PROGRAM

There are various types of cultural pogrammes organized. Dalkhai dance is the most popular folk dance of Sambalpur.

Nuakhai Juhar Photo

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