Bengaluru Karaga is the city's oldest festival: nine days at the Dharmaraya Swamy temple in Thigalarapete, kept by the Thigala gardener community and dedicated to Draupadi as a form of Shakti (the goddess as divine power). Its climax is one night, the Chaitra full moon, when the Karaga bearer carries a tower of jasmine on his head through the old pete quarter from after midnight until dawn. In 2027 the festival is expected on 12–20 April, with the procession on the night of 20 April; the temple committee confirms the schedule one to two months ahead.
The temple committee and the state temple department announce the schedule one to two months ahead; Bengaluru traffic police publish road closures on the day.
What you see on procession night
For most of the nine days Karaga is a neighbourhood temple festival. The flag goes up at Dharmaraya Swamy about eight days before the full moon, and the rituals build towards two nights: Hasi Karaga, two nights before the full moon, and Huvina Karaga, the flower Karaga, on the full moon itself.
On that night the Karaga priest, a man of the Thigala community, is dressed as a bride. In the temple's account he now carries the presence of Adishakti, the primordial goddess. Some time after midnight (about 12:30 am in 2026) he steps out of the temple with the Karaga on his head: a pot crowned with a tall pyramid of jasmine, which he balances without touching it. Around him walk the Veerakumaras, initiated men of the community, bare-chested in white dhotis, with swords. In 2026 there were about 5,000 of them.
The route runs about 22 kilometres through the lanes of the old city. Temples along the way receive the Karaga with offerings, and on Cottonpet Main Road it stops at the 18th-century dargah (tomb shrine) of the Sufi saint Hazrat Tawakkal Mastan and circles it three times. This visit has been kept every year and is the most photographed moment of the night. The Karaga turns back at the Annamma temple and is home before sunrise. The smell of jasmine hangs in the lanes long after it has passed.
The story behind Karaga
The festival follows a story told in the Thigala tradition, not in the Mahabharata text itself. As the Pandavas and Draupadi walked towards the Himalayas at the end of their lives, a demon named Timirasura threatened her, and Draupadi, as a form of Shakti, created an army of warriors, the Veerakumaras, to destroy him. When she continued her ascent, the Veerakumaras begged her to stay, and she promised to return to them every year on the full moon of Chaitra. Karaga marks that homecoming.
The Thigalas came to Bengaluru from Tamil Nadu, many in the 18th century, when Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan invited skilled gardeners to tend Lalbagh. Estimates of the festival's age range from about 300 to 800 years. Either way it is far older than the tech city around it, and the word karaga itself simply means an earthen pot.
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Where to watch the procession