Kharchi Puja 2027 Date

About Kharchi Puja

Once a year in Asadha (June–July), the fourteen royal deities of Tripura — represented only by their carved heads — leave the locked Chaturdasha Devata Mandir in Old Agartala for a week of public darshan. Kharchi Puja marks that brief opening, and traditionally includes a buffalo sacrifice.

The fourteen gods carry Kokborok names — Burasa, Lampra, Khuluma and so on — that correspond to Shiva, Brahma, Lakshmi, Ganga, Himadri, Kamadeva and others. They are unusual icons: only the heads are sculpted, not full bodies. The Chantai, the hereditary Tripuri head priest, leads the rites — not a Brahmin. On the eve of the puja the heads are carried to the Saidra (Howrah) river, bathed, and brought back in procession. The buffalo offering recalls a local legend from the Rajmala chronicles: Harabati, widow of the wicked king Tripur, found the fourteen gods cornered up a cotton tree by a wild buffalo and helped them kill it. The name 'Kharchi' comes from the Kokborok 'khya' (earth), and the seven-day rite is also read as cleansing Mother Earth after her annual menstruation.