16.1Mysore Dasara
Dasara has been celebrated at Mysore since Raja Wadiyar I revived the Vijayanagara Mahanavami at Srirangapatna in 1610. It is now the Nada Habba (state festival) of Karnataka, running for ten days in the lunar month of Ashvina and culminating on Vijayadashami.[1]
The climax is the Jamboo Savari, a procession in which a decorated elephant carries the golden howdah bearing the idol of Chamundeshwari from the palace to the Bannimantap grounds, followed by the torchlight parade.[1] The palace is illuminated with roughly one hundred thousand lights during the festival.
16.2The wider festival calendar
Other major observances include Ugadi (the Kannada new year), Chamundeshwari Jayanti and the Chamundi Hill fairs, Ganesha Chaturthi, Deepavali, Sankranti, Ramzan and Christmas in a city with long-standing Muslim and Christian communities, and the Karnataka Rajyotsava on 1 November.[2]
16.3Dasara as institution
Since 1970 the festival has been organised by the state government rather than the palace, with exhibitions, film and food festivals, wrestling, air shows and a poets' meet added to the ritual core; the private royal durbar continues separately within the palace.[1]