Story behind bhoto Jatra

In Nepali Language"Bhoto" means "Vest" and "Jatra" means Festival

long time ago in kathmandu valley there was a lake called Taudaha. where king and queen of snakes used to live.  karkotak was name of king of snake.

They were living very happily but one day the queen became ill. Her eyes begin to hurt badly, as situtation was become worse, He began his journey to bhaktapur where experienced jyapu physician used to live. karkotak visited him and request him to come to his palace and heal his wife. and he will be rewarded handsomly. 

The physician agreed and went back to karkotak palace in taudaha lake. through power of karkotak physician was able to breath and went under the water to palace. Then physican began to work on healing queen with his medication. He succeed. Karkotak became very happy, and presented with many valuable things.Among them black bhoto decorated with diamond was one. 

The bhoto was so beautiful. He wore that bhoto everywhere he went. A Ghost saw a bhoto and became obessed with it. and wished to have it. ghost began to follow the physican who was also a farmer everywhere he went. One day while farmer was working on field. He put his bhoto aside in the field. Using this as a opportunity the ghost took the bhoto and ran away. Farmer ran after him but could not catch him. 

At that time festival of machhendranath was happening in patan where people pull the giant chariot. whole people of valley used to celebrate that festival. so the farmer thought that the ghost must be here somewhere. He was right. He saw ghost wearing his bhoto. He caught him. The big quarrel broke out between them. They got attention of king Gunakamdev. He was a justice loving king. so he listened the story of both of them. But they couldn't proved concrete proof. so king gunakamdev made a decision to kept it under the care of priest of machhendranath nath  until the concrete proof. 

And thus farmer went to snake king karkotak ko come as witness for concrete proof. The king agreed but king said there will be storm when he arrived and he will be taller than the rest of the people.

The chariot festival was happening. The farmer was there. At end the third day of festival people started to go back home. There was no storm but a little wind. Farmer could not locate the snake king.At last hour of festival the priest of machhendranath chariot displayed the bhoto to crowd . Asking "who does this bhoto belongs to?". But no one came forward for its claim with concrete proof. so every year during the festival of machhendranath the tradition of showing bhoto started as someone will come to claim it with proof. 

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