Matya

Matya is a typical Buddhist festival of Nepal. In Newar, it means the Festival of lights. It is, however, quite different from Deepawali which the Hindus celebrate every year in November. Matya beings early in its morning on the third day of the dark fortnight of Sharawan (August-September).
There is a very interesting story about the origin of this festival:
Buddhists have a tremendous respect for this festival. Therefore, they celebrate it with great feast and fun. They highly regard it as an unforgettable day as all the maras surrendered themselves to the all-compassionate Buddha and confessed their sins.
Matya is marked by a long parade of the enthusiastic shrine-walkers who go round all the Buddhist shrines scattered in and around the city of Patan. It must be noted that Patan alone has over 1,300 Buddhist shrines. The offerings of rice grains, flowers, red powders, sweets, incense and guru patra (a gift cup for teacher) are quite common. However, offering oil or butter lamps to Lord Buddha on this auspicious day is a dominant feature. It signifies great enlightenment obtained by overcoming the maras (temptations).Once Shakya muni Gautam was in deep penance to attain nirvana. The maras were determined to break his concentration and ame down in different guises to detract him. Some garbed themselves as fierce-looking demons, some as apsaras (damsels or fairies) and so on. They all made every possible attempt to seduce him but all in vain. Instead, Shakya Mini overcame the maras and became the Buddha, the Enlightened One. It is said that on, the maras came to confess their sins to Lord Buddha and worrshipped him with great honour. Every since, this festival is believed to have come into existence to mark Buddha's victory over them much as Deepawali marks Rama's victory over the demon king Ravana.
The expression of this story can be found in Matya. All those devil dancers, the apsara actors and several other funny mask-wearers who are the part and parcel of the festive parade are said to represent the maras. This parade is always accompanied by several groups of musicians playing various kinds of traditional Nepalese musical instruments. The route prescribed for this parade looks quite confusing yet accepted as the most perfect and shortest. The parade is supposed to move on in an unbroken chain. This is the only way for all the shine-walkers not to get lost before they complete this religious journey. The entire parade is led by one of the group of musicians.
Interestingly, ten different neighbourhoods of Patan have long been running the parade. The responsibility of organizing it goes to each of these neighbourhoods once in every ten years. Traditionally, the sponsoring tole must train a team of traditional drurn-players who are expected to display every skill in the public. Known as Naubaja Khala, they perform the show in a very special way only at the member toles devoted to this Matya festival. It is quite exciting to see the way they go round the town and perform this typical musical event with great enthusiasm. Some of the drums that are used for the occasion are so richly decorated that people sometimes mistake them for temple treasures.