By Siddhi B. Ranjitkar
Bhaktapur is an ancient cultural city-state in the Nepal Valley. According to one estimate, it has almost half of the ancient wood carvings found in the South Asia. So, it would not be exaggeration to say that Bhaktapur is the center of the Nepalese culture. You can see remnants of the cultural heritage in Bhaktapur even today. One of them is the annual ‘Bisikia’ festival. Bhaktapurians celebrate the eight-night and nine-day ‘Bisika’ festival over the period of four days before and four days after the Nepalese New Year day in the Vikram calendar.
Origin and Evolution of Festival
The exact date of the origin of this festival is not known yet, however, this festival must have developed along with the expansion of the Tantrism in Nepal during the period of Licchavi region (400 A.D. – 800 A.D.) because most of the rituals performed to God Bhairava and Goddess Bhadrakali, and ‘Yao-sin dyo’ (symbolic union of Bhairava and Bhadrakali) are closely related to Tantra. In addition, this festival had evolved during the period of more than five hundred years when Malla Kings ruled Nepal from the beginning of the 13th century to the mid 18th century.
