Payo Jatra is our Dashain jatra in Patan Durbar Square. Hami Patan-baasi usually just call it Payo. It is the day the khadga, the sacred sword, comes out of the old palace courtyard and the tole stops to watch. The square gets tight, the bearers start to shake, and people find room for them without anyone having to announce it.

For about 24 years that did not happen. Dashain still came. Families came home, tika and jamara still went around, and Durbar Square was full. Payo was the part that was missing. In 2018 the Mu Chhen guthi, Lalitpur and local people brought the jatra back, and since then it has happened every year. We know what Dashain felt like without the khadga, and we know what the square feels like now that it is part of the festival again.

Why we celebrate Payo

Payo is a victory procession. It sits inside Dashain, which Newars also call Mohani, because Bijaya Dashami is the day the festival marks the victory of good over evil. The story families tell is Goddess Durga defeating the demon Mahishasura. The khadga is carried through the square so that victory is walked through the tole, not only remembered at home.

In everyday talk the name is Payo, or sometimes Paya. One explanation joins two Newari words: pa, a heavy traditional sword, and yaa, a procession. When the bearers come through Durbar Square, many people here believe the deities themselves have stepped into them. That belief is why their whole bodies tremble, and why the crowd goes quiet and gives them room.

The jatra is looked after by the Mu Chhen Aangan Guthi, the trust tied to Patan’s main agam ghar. Mu Chhen is the shrine house in the Durbar Square area, and the khadgas come from there. For hami Patan-baasi the meaning is plain. The sword comes back to the square, and a Dashain rite we almost lost is part of the year again.

When it happens

Payo follows the lunar calendar, because Dashain does. The days that matter are in the bright fortnight of Ashwin. Maha Ashtami is the eighth day, Maha Navami is the ninth, and Bijaya Dashami is the tenth. In 2026 Maha Ashtami falls on Sunday 18 October, Maha Navami on Tuesday 20 October, and Bijaya Dashami on Wednesday 21 October, which is Kartik 4, 2083. Bijaya Dashami is the main tika day, when elders put tika and jamara and the city feels most like Dashain.

The jatra builds across those three tithi, while the khadgas move between Mul Chowk and the Mahalaxmi temple. Bijaya Dashami is when the procession and the crowd meet in Mangal Bazar. The English date shifts with the moon, so people follow a Nepali calendar and the guthi’s timing for that year.

How the jatra unfolds

It begins at Mu Chhen. Three bearers carry the khadgas, along with the main deity, and they are kept in a room inside Taleju Bhawani’s Mul Chowk. That courtyard, in Patan Durbar Square, is the home base. People gather there before the bearers move, and they watch them come back when a stage of the procession is done.

On Maha Ashtami the three khadgas are carried from Mul Chowk to the Mahalaxmi temple in Lagankhel and installed there. In the evening there is a puja, and a sacrifice is part of that Dashain rite, as it is in many Newar houses on these days. On Maha Navami the same bearers bring the khadgas back to Mul Chowk. They do not return in silence. Music comes with them, and the walk feels like a homecoming.

On Bijaya Dashami the square itself is the rite. The khadga bearers walk through Patan Durbar Square, shaking as they go, while the crowd tightens and then opens a path. The trembling is the sign people understand, because it is tied to the belief that the deities are present in the bearers. Relatives are in the tole, and the guthi and the bearers are moving the khadgas through a family Dashain. You step back because of how they move.

My day at the jatra

I filmed Payo in Durbar Square so the vlog could hold the two things that stayed with me. One is the khadga bearers walking through a square that had gone without this jatra for 24 years. The other is the chase.

One of the most fun moments was watching the Payo chase people around the square, especially the ones teasing them. The crowd would scatter, laugh, and gather right back again. The khadga stays sacred while that happens. The chase is how the tole joins the rite: you step back in respect, and a moment later you are running and laughing in the same courtyard.

The Mayor of Lalitpur Metropolitan City was there too. I was happy to see him in the square with the khadga bearers. Payo had been gone for so long that the mayor standing with the jatra mattered. The city was present for a Dashain tradition the tole had missed, and the bearers were back in Durbar Square as a yearly thing. I kept filming so people who were not there could see the trembling walk and the chase.

If you have seen Payo Jatra in Patan, or a Payo in your own tole, tell me how your square does it. The comments are open.