Social Life: Fairs, Festivals, Customs and Ornaments

Where this sits

RPSC's ninth syllabus line: "Social life — fairs and festivals, customs and traditions, attire and ornaments."

This topic is set almost entirely as matching, and the three axes are always the same: fair to place and month, festival to month and deity, and ornament to the part of the body it is worn on. A candidate who organises the material along those three axes will answer nearly everything; one who reads it as description will not.

And one caution carries over from the previous chapter. The religious life chapter deliberately left fairs and festivals to this one, so the deities are there and their fairs are here. Ramdevra belongs to Ramdevji, Baneshwar to the Bhil communities of the tribal chapter, and Pushkar to the Ajmer thread that runs through the whole unit.

1. The fairs

Sort them by what they are actually for, because that is the underlying logic and it makes the list far easier to hold.

Three kinds, and the classification is the answer to most questions:

1. Deity fairs, held at a shrine on the deity's date — Ramdevra for Ramdevji, Kaila Devi, Shri Mahavirji.
2. Livestock fairs, which are markets — Nagaur and Pushkar for cattle and camels, Mallinath at Tilwara.
3. Tribal fairs, of which Baneshwar is the great example.

Correction, 27 August 2026 — the Nagaur fair is a January-February fair

Until 27 August 2026 this page placed the Nagaur fair in October and November. That was wrong, and it was wrong in four places, including Prelims Focus.

The Department of Tourism, Government of Rajasthan, organises the fair itself and dates it plainly. Its press release for the 2017 edition runs the fair from 1 to 4 February 2017, calls it "also known as the 'Shri Ramdeo Cattle Fair'", and states that it is "held every year between the months of January and February". The Department's published Fairs and Festivals list for 2024 to 2030 carries the same window in every year without exception: 15-18 February 2024, 3-6 February 2025, 24-27 January 2026, 12-15 February 2027, 2-5 February 2028.

So the answer is January-February, and the confusion is worth understanding rather than just correcting. Two of the state's great livestock fairs sit at opposite ends of the year: Pushkar in Kartik, which is October-November, and Nagaur in the depth of winter, which is January-February. A question that offers October-November for Nagaur is offering Pushkar's month, and that is the substitution the option is built on.

Two further details from the same release, both examinable. The Department calls Nagaur "the second biggest cattle fair in India", and the cattle competitions are run by the Animal Husbandry Department while the fair as a whole is run by Tourism. Alongside the livestock, Nagaur trades spices, and the fair's Mirchi Bazaar is described by the Department as the largest red chilli market of India.

Three tithis this page can now fix

This chapter's own rule is to read the tithi and not the month. Three of its fairs were carried with a month only, and government sources give the tithi for all three.

Pushkar has a beginning as well as an end. The Tourism Department's release on the fair's conclusion states that "according to Hindu calendar, it takes place in the month of Kartika beginning on ashtmi, 8th day of lunar calendar, and continues till full moon". This page already carried the closing tithi. The opening one is Kartik Shukla Ashtami, and the fair is an eight-day event on the lunar count.

And the same release settles an argument this chapter makes on other grounds. It records that "the camel and cattle trading is at its peak during the first half of festival period", and that "during the latter half, religious activities dominate the scenario". The sacred and the commercial are not merely combined at Pushkar, they are sequenced: the market runs first, the pilgrimage closes on Purnima. That is a stronger version of the argument in section 7 than this page has been making, and it comes from the body that organises the fair. The Department also calls Pushkar "the world's largest annual camel fair", and names the Pushkar Mela Vikas Samiti as its co-organiser.

Baneshwar's date was this chapter's own worst offender, given as "February" with no tithi at all. The Tourism Department's press release for the fair puts it "on the full moon day of February, or Magh Shukla Purnima", and records that Bhils travel from Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to bathe at the confluence of the Mahi and the Som. The fair is organised by the Department with the District Administration, Dungarpur, with performances by the West Zone Cultural Centre, Udaipur, and its distinctive performance is the Gair, danced by men in red ghagras. Note that the Department names two rivers and not three.

Kolayat finally gets an owner. This page has until now discussed Kolayat only in order to reject a claim about it, and never said whose fair it is. It is the Kapil Muni fair. The Ministry of Tourism's destination page for Kolayat records that Kapil Muni, a sage held to be an incarnation of Vishnu, meditated there, that the fair is called the Kapil Muni Fair or Kolayat Fair, and that it falls on Kartik Purnima. Kolayat Lake is an artificial, sweet-water tank with about 52 ghats, marble temples and sandstone pavilions.

That produces a pairing worth holding. Kolayat and Pushkar both close on Kartik Purnima, at two tanks about three hundred kilometres apart, one in Bikaner and one in Ajmer. A fair's tithi does not identify it; the tithi and the place together do. An option that gives Kartik Purnima and asks for the fair is under-specified unless it also names the district.

The four fairs this page used to leave undated

Read the tithi, not the month. Every one of these is fixed to a lunar date, which is why the Gregorian date moves each year and why an examiner can only test the tithi. Three of the four fall in Chaitra or Bhadrapada, and the two Karauli fairs — Kaila Devi and Shri Mahavirji — both sit in Chaitra, which is the pairing most likely to be scrambled in an option.

The Shri Mahavirji Rath Yatra. On Vaisakha Krishna Dwitiya the image is taken in procession to the bank of the Gambhiri river for kalash abhishek, in a golden chariot drawn by bullocks. That final day, not the opening day, is the fair's peak — and the opening tithi is exactly where sources disagree, so it is flagged below rather than asserted.

A district trap worth knowing. Shri Mahavirji and Kaila Devi are both in Karauli district today, but Karauli became Rajasthan's 32nd district only on 19 July 1997, carved out of Sawai Madhopur. Older books and older question papers therefore place Shri Mahavirji in Sawai Madhopur, and they were right when they were written. If a dated source says Sawai Madhopur, check its year before calling it an error.

Notice that the categories overlap rather than compete. Pushkar is simultaneously a pilgrimage on Kartik Purnima and the largest camel market in the region. That is not a coincidence: a religious calendar that brings tens of thousands of people to one place on a fixed date is a trading opportunity, and the fair economy of Rajasthan runs on exactly that combination. A candidate who says a fair is "religious" or "commercial" has divided something that was never divided.

2. Gangaur, and why it is worth understanding rather than dating

Gangaur begins the day after Holi and runs for eighteen days, in the month of Chaitra (March-April). The principal day falls on Chaitra Shukla Tritiya.

The name is the pair. Gan refers to Shiva and Gaur to Parvati — the festival honours their union, and its two figures are Isar (Shiva) and Gauri.

The structure, which is a social fact

This is the thing to carry. In the local account, Gauri comes to her maternal home on the second day of Holi, and after eighteen days Isar comes to fetch her back.

The festival is therefore an enactment of a married woman's visit to her parents' house, and of her husband arriving to take her away again. In a society of patrilocal marriage, where a woman leaves her natal village permanently at marriage, the annual return home is one of the few structured occasions on which she goes back. Gangaur ritualises that, at length, and gives it eighteen days.

That reading explains the observances. It is women who keep the fast, sing the songs and carry out the rites. The sindoor offered to the goddess is then applied by women to the parting of their own hair, identifying the worshipper with the deity. The images of Gauri and Isar are carried in procession and immersed at a lake or tank at the close, and women walk to the water carrying pitchers on their heads, dressed in leheriya or bandhani.

What the Tourism Department's own account adds, including the eighteen days

The Department of Tourism, Government of Rajasthan, publishes an account of Gangaur alongside its Jaipur procession, and it agrees with this page on the two things that were in doubt.

On the derivation, the Department states that "Gan is a synonym for Lord Shiva and Gauri or Gaur stands for Goddess Parvati", and that the festival "celebrates the union of the two and is a symbol of conjugal and marital happiness".

On the length, it gives eighteen. Its wording is that the worship "starts from the first day of the Chaitra month" and "culminates on the 18th day into Gangaur festival". This page begins the count from the day after Holi and the Department begins it from the first day of Chaitra, and the two arrive at the same number. They are also the same day: on the Purnimanta reckoning of northern India, Chaitra opens with the krishna paksha, so the first day of Chaitra is the day after Holi Purnima. Count eighteen tithis from there and you land on Chaitra Shukla Tritiya, which is the principal day this chapter already carries. The eighteen-day figure, the starting day and the principal day are one statement, not three.

The observances the Department records add three this page did not carry. The idols of Gan and Gauri are of clay and are worshipped in the house; unmarried girls worship for a good husband and married women for their husbands' health and long life, which is the distinction between the two groups of worshippers; and on the eve of the festival women decorate their palms and fingers with henna. The immersion at the close, which this page already carried, the Department places "in a pond or in a nearby lake on the last day".

The Jaipur procession is a set of facts in its own right. It leaves the Tripolia Gate of the City Palace, runs through Tripolia Bazaar, Chhoti Chaupar and Gangauri Bazaar, and ends at Pondrik Park. It carries a cannon carriage, a decorated rath, ornamented horses and camels, and folk performances including Kachhi Ghodi, Kalbeliya, Behrupiya, Algoza, Gair and Chakri. The sawari of Gangaur comes at the very end, followed by the chobdar and by women in traditional dress carrying kalash. It is organised jointly by the Department of Tourism, the District Administration, the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum Trust and the Jaipur Municipal Corporation.

For Mains, this is the chapter's strongest paragraph. A festival is not only a date; Gangaur is a social institution addressing a specific structural fact about marriage, and saying so is a different order of answer from naming the month.

Teej, in Shravan, is the other great women's festival of the calendar and is treated as Gangaur's monsoon counterpart.

The pairing is not this page's invention; the state stages the two as a matched pair. The Tourism Department runs the Teej procession over the same route as Gangaur's, from the Tripolia Gate of the City Palace through Tripolia Bazar, Chhoti Chaupar and Gangauri Bazaar to Pondrik Park, with the same cannon carriage, decorated rath and bands, and with the idol of the goddess near the end of the procession, followed by the chobdar. Two festivals six months apart, given an identical civic form, is a fact about how the state has organised its own calendar, and it is the cleanest evidence for treating Teej as Gangaur's counterpart.

Three details from the same source are answerable on their own. Swings hung from trees and dressed with flowers are the festival's defining object, and the Department calls the occasion the "Sawan festival". The clothing worn is printed leheriya, which ties Teej to the textile section of this chapter. And the sweets of the season are ghevar and feeni, which is the sort of detail an option uses to separate Teej from Gangaur.

2b. The festivals the state itself organises, where the Gregorian date is the answer

This chapter refuses Gregorian dates for lunar observances, and that policy is right. It does not cover this table. The Department of Tourism, Government of Rajasthan, publishes a Fairs and Festivals list running from 2024 to 2030 in which it fixes the dates of the events it organises. These are state-run events with announced dates, so here the Gregorian date is not an approximation of the answer, it is the answer.

Source: Department of Tourism, Government of Rajasthan, 2024-2030 Fair and Festivals list. The list gives names and dates only. It does not name districts, so no district column is given here rather than one being guessed.

Read that list down the seven years and it splits in two, which is the point. Five of these festivals never move: the Kite Festival on 14 January, the Matsya Festival on 25-26 November, Kumbhalgarh on 1-3 December, Ranakpur on 21-22 December and the Winter Festival at the end of December, identical in every year from 2024 to 2030. Every other row moves, because it is pinned to a tithi that the Department is converting for you. A festival whose date is fixed in the Gregorian calendar is an administrative creation; a festival whose date moves is an older observance the state has taken over. That distinction is worth more in an answer than the dates themselves.

One caution about the file. It carries at least one impossible date, giving the Desert Festival as 28 to 30 February 2029. Use the near years and treat the far ones as provisional.

Holi, as the state stages it in Braj

This chapter has so far mentioned Holi only as the day Gangaur begins. The Tourism Department and the District Administration, Bharatpur, jointly organise a two-day Braj Holi Festival across Deeg, Kaman and Bharatpur, and its programme names the regional forms of Holi that a matching question is built from.

• At Kaman, the temples host Gulal Holi, Kanuj Gulal Holi, Doodh-Dahi Holi, Laddu Holi and Phoolon ki Holi, at the Shri Gokul Chandrama, Madan Mohan, Radha Vallabh and Gopinath temples.
• A procession runs from the Gopinath temple to the Radha Vallabh temple, and it is in that procession that Phoolon ki Holi and Lathmar Holi are performed.
• At Deeg, the first day's performances are staged at the Deeg Palace, and include Bam Rasiya, Dhola, Chakri, Tera Taali, Kachhi Ghodi and Bahrupiya Swang.

A district note. The release naming Deeg and Kaman as part of Bharatpur district was issued before the reorganisation. Deeg has been a district in its own right since 2023, one of the eight creations of that year that survived the abolition of nine districts on 28 December 2024. Older material placing Deeg in Bharatpur was correct when it was written, which is the same caution this chapter already makes about Shri Mahavirji and Sawai Madhopur.

3. Ornaments, arranged by where they are worn

This is how the question is set — "which of the following is worn on the neck" — so this is how the material should be learned.

The distinguishing details that make each answerable:

• Borla is spherical or bell-like, which is what distinguishes it from an ordinary maang tika. Shape is the identifier.
• Timaniya is a square or rectangular choker, and is described as among India's oldest neck ornaments.
• The neck set has an order, and it is a sequence by size: Timaniya or Aad (closest, smallest) → Kanthi → Rani Haar or Maharani Haar (longest). A question giving the sequence is testing that they are worn together, not alternatively.
• Bajubandh is worn on the upper arm by brides and is made with meenakari work — which ties to the handicrafts chapter.
• Kandora is a heavy girdle at the waist.
• Nath is worn in the left nostril and connected to the ear by a thin gold chain called a sankli. The chain is the identifier, and it is why the nose ornament and the ear ornament are worn together.
• Karnphool is flower-shaped, with pearls hanging downward — the name says so. Jhumka is bell-shaped, a void hemisphere with bells attached. Bedla is worn on the upper part of the ear, and two or three are worn together by married women.
• Haath Phool covers the wrist from all sides, is hollow inside, and is tied on with a silken thread.
• Nevari resembles the kadi but has a broader end; Rimjhol is an evenly formed ring that tinkles with the movement of the foot. Worn as a set, ankle ornaments are called a jod.
• Bichhiya is the toe ring, worn by married Hindu women, typically on the second toe of each foot.

One structural observation worth making. Rajasthani women's dress — the kanchli above and the odhni over it — leaves the waist visible, and the waist ornaments are correspondingly elaborate. The jewellery is designed for the garment, and the two topics are one topic.

4. Attire

The principal garments named in this syllabus are the angarkhi, the kanchli, the ghagra and the odhni for women, with the safa or pagari — the turban — for men, and the dhoti and angarkha.

Two textile techniques double as festive dress and are already on this site as crafts: leheriya and bandhani, both worn at Gangaur, and both belonging with the Sanganeri and Bagru printing traditions of the crafts chapter.

The turban, which is a document

The turban goes by three names — safa, paaga and pagri — and the distinction that gets asked is one of length: a pagri runs to about 21 metres, a safa to between 9 and 11 metres.

Every region had its own style and colour, and the named types include the Jodhpuri Safa, the Udaipuri Paag, the bandhej turbans of Jaipur, the Jallori of Jalore, the Bhatti of Jaisalmer, and the Alwar, Sirohi and Banswara styles. The Shahi Jodhpuri paag is the royal form.

The examinable point is what a turban communicated. From the style of the turban a man's region, caste and religion could often be read. It is a document worn on the head, and describing it only as headgear misses the entire function: in a society organised by rank, dress that encodes identity is doing administrative work.

4b. Costume and textile, from the board textbook

From the Rajasthan Board's History and Culture textbook, which devotes a chapter to costumes and ornaments. It confirms the ornament work on this page, which came from a state gazetteer, and extends it considerably, and it carries the textile material in full.

The board opens with a saying worth carrying: Maaru thare desh me upje teen ratan, ik dhola, dooji marwan teejo kasmool rang — three jewels are produced in your land: the beloved, the woman of Marwar, and the colour kasmool, which means red. The most special thing about Rajasthani costume, the board says, is its vibrant colour, and red above all.

Men's dress, and the turban as a document

Cotton has been in use since the Kalibangan and Ahar civilisations — the spinning jenny and spindles found in those excavations are the evidence. In the villages men wear the dhoti and the pachewada, the cloth covering the upper body, with the angarakhi in winter.

The turban carries the argument, and section 4 of this chapter already makes it — the board supplies the detail that proves it.

The saying the board quotes is pagdi ki laaj rakhna — to keep the honour of the turban. It protected the head from strong sunlight and reflected the social status and religious feelings of the person, and the practice of giving honour by presenting a turban at marriages and celebrations is still prevalent.

Section 4 of this chapter calls the turban a document worn on the head. The board's table is that claim itemised — style, profession, season, occasion and class each written into the same object.

The angarakhi likewise came in many names: Tansukh, Duttai, Gaaba, Gadar, Mirzai, Dhodi, Kano, Dagla. Winter angarakhis were stuffed with cotton, and khes, shawl and pamdi were thrown over the shoulders. The board notes that although India has largely adopted western dress, Rajasthan's Jodhpuri coat still holds its place.

Women's dress

In the early medieval period women wore a lower garment now popular as the ghaghra, and by that period women's clothes began to be printed and embroidered — a tradition still visible in the apparel of the nomadic and tribal women of Rajasthan.

• The wrapped lower garment became the gherdaar kaliyon waala ghaghra, also called lehenga.
• Kurti is the notable garment above the waist, still prevalent in Marwar today, and the kaanchali was worn under the kurti.
• Sarees included chol, nichol, pat, dukool, ansuk, vasan, cheer-patori, chorso, odhani, chundari and the dhorawali. The special sarees of Rajasthan are chundari and lahariya.

The textile industry

Some of the thirty-six karkhanas established by Sawai Jai Singh were textile works — the simvankhana, rangkhana and chhapakhana, where clothes were stitched, coloured and printed respectively.

Dyeing is done by the Rangrez or Neelagar, and the fabrics dyed are the turban, saafa, odhani, ghaghra and angarakhi. The major types of dyeing are pomcha, lahariya and chunri, with chaukadi, chaukadi ka jaal, patanga and dhanak besides.

Three details here are the most examinable in the chapter.

One — the pomcha announces the sex of a child. Pomcha is an odhani with a lotus-flower motif, and it is customary for the mother of a newborn to receive a yellow pomcha on the birth of a son and a pink pomcha on the birth of a daughter, from the maternal side.

Two — lahariya and mothara differ by the direction of the stripe. If the stripes run oblique on one side only it is lahariya; if they run on both sides, crossing each other, it is mothara. Lahariyas are made in one, two, three, five and seven colours, and five is auspicious — hence panchrang lahariya is worn on religious occasions. On Teej in Shravan women wear the lahariya-bhaant odhni and men the lahariya turban. The Rajashahi lahariya, dyed by the Rangrez and Neelgar of Jaipur, had bright pink stripes; the samudra lahar lahariya, also of Jaipur, has broader stripes; and a Pratapsahi lahariya is mentioned in literature.

Three — ajrakh is printed on both sides. Barmer is famous for the ajrakh method, and printing on both sides of the cloth, in red and blue, is its speciality; its designs are geometric and resemble Turkish tiles.

Also carried: the baddh, tied, technique of bandhej chunri is the most popular, and no religious work is complete without a chunri; the Jodhana chunri of Jodhpur is bright and durable, and the bandhej of Sikar is also popular. Large and bold designs are printed at Pipad, Jodhpur and Pali in red, black, blue and green; chunri is printed mainly in red and black at Ahar and Bhilwara; and Akola is called the Chheepon ka town for the scale of its printing.

And one detail that is almost a museum label. Garments were once coloured with Malagiri (Malayagiri), a brown whose fragrance lasted for years — and the board records that the angarakhis of Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II, kept in the City Palace at Jaipur, still retain that fragrance. Hunters used amowa, which resembled khaki.

Ornaments, extended

The board's account confirms the gazetteer-based list in section 3 and adds a great deal, including two categories of ornament that are rarely listed anywhere.

The evidence trail is worth having on its own. Women at Kalibangan and Ahar wore ornaments of clay and stone. In the Shunga period women wore bangles on the hands, khadwas — anklets — on the feet, and hanging necklaces of gold, silver, pearls and gems, while those who were not rich used bronze, brass and copper, and ivory ornaments were also in vogue. For the medieval period, the sculptures of Osian, Nagda, Dilwara and Kumbhalgarh show the forms of kundal, necklace, armlet, bangles, ankle bells (nupur) and rings (mudrika).

That sentence connects this chapter to the architecture chapter directly. Osian, Nagda, Dilwara and Kumbhalgarh are treated there as buildings. Here they are read as evidence for jewellery — the sculpture on a temple wall is a costume record, and that is a genuinely useful way to answer a question about sources for social history.

The teeth are the entry no preparation material carries, and the two terms are distinct: rakhan is a coating, choonp is an inserted nail. A category of ornament that is neither worn nor removable is worth a line by itself.

Men's ornaments — and the board says the tradition has now reduced considerably but is still worn in rural areas: murkiyaan, laung, jhaale, chhelkadi in the ears; baajuband, kada, narmukh on the hands; ring, beethiya, moondriya on the fingers.

Children's ornaments — hansuli at the neck, kade on hands and legs, moti or loong in the ears. The kadas of hands and legs are together called kaddulya, and the thin sangli worn on the foot with ghunghroos attached is called jhaanjhriya or jhaanjhariya, also called painjanni.

Note the material distinctions the board draws, because they are what an option will test. Mokdi are bangles of lac; kaatarya are bangles of glass. Two words that both mean bangle, separated only by what they are made of.

5. Customs

Five named customs recur in this syllabus. Two connect directly to earlier chapters, and one of them has to be corrected against what this page said yesterday.

Tyag. At the marriage of a girl of the Rajput caste, a sum was given as a donation by the bride's father to the Charans, Bhats and people of other castes. That payment is called tyag.

Follow the thread. The nineteenth-century chapter records that the Walterkrit Rajputana Hitkarini Sabha of 1888 was formed after a circular on Rajput marriage expenditure, and that it set out to curb spending on marriages and to abolish dowry and the customs of Teeka and Rit. Tyag is exactly the kind of payment that circular was about, and the Charans receiving it are the same community whose Dingal poetry the language chapter describes. A bardic community sustained partly by marriage payments is a fact about both literature and social structure.

Nata pratha, which has two meanings and not one. This page carried only one of them until 20 August 2026, and that was a gap wide enough to cost a mark. The correction is set out below and in Sources.

• Sense 1, widow remarriage. The Rajasthan District Gazetteer states flatly that the remarriage of a widow is called nata. The ceremony is deliberately slight: no priests or relatives are usually invited, and it consists of the new husband giving his wife clothes, ornaments and bangles and placing rice and a coconut in her lap.
• Sense 2, a union without a ceremony. A relationship formalised without a marriage ceremony, through a payment — reported in Rajasthan, Gujarat and parts of Madhya Pradesh, and associated particularly with the Bhil community.

Both senses are attested, and the common root is the word itself: nata means relationship. What unites them is the absence of the full ritual — a nata union is defined by what it does not require, which is precisely why it was available to widows in the first place.

The clinching evidence that sense 1 is real is a caste. The gazetteer records that widow remarriage was not permitted among Brahmans, Rajputs, Khatris, Charans, Kayasths and Mahajans. Out of that prohibition came the Natrayat Rajputs — a caste descended from Chauhan Rajputs of Marwar who took up widow remarriage and were, for that reason, separated from the wider Rajput community. A community named after the practice is about as strong as evidence gets that nata meant widow remarriage.

Handle this one carefully, and know why. Its characterisation is genuinely contested — a published study asks in its title whether the practice represents freedom or captivity for women — and contemporary reporting raises serious concerns about coercion and the involvement of minors. This page records what the custom is and that its interpretation is disputed, and does not present it as a settled or benign institution. For an exam, the definitions are what is asked; for an interview, the dispute is the more useful thing to know.

Mosar. A funeral feast, arranged on the thirteenth day after a death. The gazetteer's sequence places it exactly: mourning rites run to the twelfth day, after which the mourner is considered pure; on the thirteenth the chief mourner massages himself with oil, bathes, reverts to his routine life, and the mosar is held. Mosar is therefore the marker of the end of mourning, not a rite of grief — which is why reformers treated its expense as a target.

Dapa, and mind the direction. Among the Bhils, and sometimes the Damors, dapa is a payment on which a marriage is settled. The bride's side demands it from the groom's side — that is, it flows opposite to dowry, and the gazetteer describes it plainly as being seen as the cost of a bride. It is paid in three instalments: at the betrothal, at the wedding, and at the gauna. Default stops the marriage. Ceremonies are not completed until each instalment is received, and the wedding or the gauna can be postponed, sometimes by years.

The terminology is the trap here. The gazetteer's own heading calls dapa a form of dowry, but the payment runs from the groom's family to the bride's, which is the reverse of what "dowry" normally means. Answer on the direction of the payment, not on the label — and note that in the Haadi form, the most common Bhil marriage, the match itself is made on the dapa amount.

Two supporting terms the same source defines, both examinable in their own right: gauna, the interval between the marriage and the bride's departure to the groom's home; and ghoonghat pratha, the veil, once strictly kept by Rajputs, Gurjars, Ahirs, Jats, Meenas and high-class Muslims and now, the gazetteer notes, fast disappearing.

Still uncovered. Kanwar is named in preparation material as a custom of this syllabus and was not found in the sources consulted. It is flagged below rather than defined from memory.

The customs that were legislated against, and when

Several of the practices on this page were the subject of state law in the nineteenth century, and the dates are asked. The Rajasthan Board's Rajasthan Adhyayan opens its Class X course with a chapter on social reform before independence, and the sequence it gives is the state's own account.

The Desh Hitaishini Sabha is the fact to carry out of that table, because it is where tyag belongs. A Mewar body of 1877 attacking marriage expenditure precedes the Rajputana-wide Walterkrit Rajputana Hitkarini Sabha of 1888 by eleven years, and it was a state's own creation rather than an Agency's. Reform in Rajasthan did not begin with the AGG's circular, and an answer that says it did has given away the more interesting half of the record.

And notice what the sequence does to tyag and mosar. Both are payments made at the two occasions a family cannot avoid, marriage and death. Every reform body in that table went after what a rite cost rather than after the rite itself. That is a choice, and it says what the colonial state and its client bodies believed was actually reachable.

6. Statement-based questions: the fault lines

Type A — Fair, wrong month or place

Type B — Ornament, wrong body part

• Borla / Rakhdi → head. Timaniya / Aad → neck. Bajubandh → upper arm. Kandora → waist.
• Aad is another name for Timaniya, not a separate ornament.
• Karnphool and jhumka are both ear ornaments; nath is the nose ring, joined to the ear by the sankli chain.
• Bichhiya is a toe ring; nevari and rimjhol are ankle ornaments.

Type C — Costume, textile and the extended ornaments

Type D — Turban and custom

Type E — Festival, wrong month or structure

• Gangaur is Chaitra, eighteen days, beginning the day after Holi. Teej is Shravan.
• Gan is Shiva and Gaur is Parvati; the figures are Isar and Gauri.
• Gauri comes to her maternal home; Isar comes to take her back. A statement reversing that reverses the whole meaning.
• The eighteen-day count is the Tourism Department's too. It writes that the worship begins on the first day of Chaitra and culminates on the 18th day, which is Chaitra Shukla Tritiya on the Purnimanta reckoning. Start, length and principal day are a single statement.
• Gangaur's idols are of clay and are worshipped at home before the procession; unmarried girls worship for a husband, married women for their husband's long life; henna is applied on the eve.
• Teej's objects are the swing, leheriya, and ghevar and feeni. Gangaur's are the clay images, sindoor and the immersion. An option that swaps the sweets or the swing between the two is testing the objects, not the months.

Type F — Category, over-divided

• Pushkar is both a pilgrimage and a livestock market. Calling it one or the other is the error.
• Baneshwar is the "Kumbh of the tribals", and takes its name from the Shiva temple.

• Pushkar's two characters are sequenced, not simultaneous. The Tourism Department records that trading peaks in the first half of the fair and religious activity dominates the second.
• Nagaur is run by two departments at once: the Tourism Department runs the fair and the Animal Husbandry Department runs the cattle competitions. It also carries the Mirchi Bazaar, which the Department calls the largest red chilli market of India.

7. Writing this in Mains

Refuse the religious-versus-commercial division. Rajasthan's great fairs are pilgrimages and markets, and they are markets because they are pilgrimages: a fixed date in a religious calendar assembles buyers and sellers at no organising cost. Pushkar is the clearest case, and the point generalises to the whole fair economy.

Read Gangaur as an institution, not a date. Eighteen days in which a goddess returns to her maternal home and is fetched back by her husband, observed by women, in a society of patrilocal marriage. The festival addresses a structural fact about women's lives, and that is what it is for.

Treat dress and ornament as one system. The kanchli and odhni leave the waist exposed, and the waist ornaments are the elaborate ones. Jewellery is designed for the garment it is worn with, so a question about ornaments is also a question about clothing.

Connect the crafts back. Bajubandh carries meenakari; Gangaur is worn in leheriya and bandhani. The crafts chapter is where these were made, and this chapter is where they were used. A craft tradition survives because there is an occasion that requires it.

Use the state's own calendar as evidence. The Tourism Department's published list of the festivals it organises splits cleanly: five have fixed Gregorian dates and never move, and every other one moves each year because it tracks a tithi. A festival the administration can put in a diary is a festival the administration made; one that has to be recalculated every year came from somewhere else and was adopted. That is a defensible way to argue about which parts of a cultural calendar are invented and which are inherited, and it rests on a document rather than on assertion.

8. Nowadays

Covering 1 January to 27 August 2026. This section is updated every month until Prelims and Mains. Everything in it is dated, because a current-affairs fact without a date is worse than no fact at all.

The fairs in this chapter actually happened this year, and their Gregorian dates are the answer to a question the tithi cannot answer. That is the whole reason this section exists on this page.

Money followed the fairs. On 16 March 2026 the Chief Minister announced Rs 130 crore for the development of Beneshwar Dham. The Budget 2026-27 of 11 February 2026 announced a Rs 30 crore Heritage Walk-Way programme in Pushkar, Khatushyamji, Nathdwara, Keshoraipatan, Deeg and Chittorgarh, and a Build-Operate-Transfer policy for dharamshalas on Devasthan land. Source: Budget Speech 2026-27.

A craft note that belongs to this chapter's attire section. During the Dutch state visit in May 2026, gifts presented included Jaipur blue pottery and Meenakari and Kundan work. The artisan-level detail that circulated appears only in local Jaipur reporting and is attributed there rather than asserted here, and national copy and local copy disagree on how many blue pottery pieces there were.

What has not changed. No fair's tithi, no ornament, no garment and no custom in this chapter was revised. Pushkar remains both a pilgrimage and a livestock market, and Gangaur's structure remains the social fact, not its date. The opening tithi of the Shri Mahavirji fair remains unsettled between Chaitra Shukla Ekadashi and Chaitra Shukla 13, as this chapter already records; the closing date is consistent.

Important for RAS

Prelims Focus

• Pushkar fair — Ajmer; month of Kartik, ending Kartik Purnima; late October to early November; religious and the camel fair

• Baneshwar fair — Dungarpur; February; the "Kumbh of the tribals"; named for the Shiva temple

• Kolayat fair — Bikaner; November

• Ramdevra fair — Ramdevra village near Pokhran, Jaisalmer district; Bhadrapada Shukla Dwitiya to Ekadashi (Aug-Sep); at Baba Ramdevji's samadhi

• Kaila Devi fair — Karauli, on the Kalisil river; from Chaitra Badi 12, for a fortnight

• Mallinath fair — Tilwara, Barmer; Chaitra Badi Ekadashi to Chaitra Sudi Ekadashi; a major cattle fair

• Shri Mahavirji fair — Chandangaon, Karauli; Digambara Jain; ends Vaisakha Krishna Dwitiya with the Rath Yatra to the Gambhiri river, the golden chariot drawn by bullocks

• District trap — Karauli became Rajasthan's 32nd district on 19 July 1997, out of Sawai Madhopur; older sources place Shri Mahavirji in Sawai Madhopur

• Gangaur — begins the day after Holi, runs eighteen days, in Chaitra (March-April); principal day Chaitra Shukla Tritiya; Gan = Shiva, Gaur = Parvati; figures Isar and Gauri; Gauri comes to her maternal home on the second day of Holi and Isar fetches her after eighteen days; observed by women; sindoor offered to the goddess applied to the women's own hair parting; images immersed at the close; dress leheriya or bandhani

• Teej — Shravan; the monsoon counterpart to Gangaur

• Gangaur's length is disputed — this page carries eighteen days; the Rajasthan Board textbook says sixteen. Both circulate; the month, the participants and the principal day are agreed

• Gangaur and Teej songs — the Ghoomar dance-song is sung at both, and the board says it has become identical with Rajasthan; Languriya, sung to Kaila Devi, is popular in Karauli

• Ornaments by body part — head: Rakhdi / Borla, spherical or bell-shaped · neck: Timaniya, also called Aad, a square or rectangular choker, worn with Kanthi and Rani Haar / Maharani Haar in that order · upper arm: Bajubandh, also Angada, with meenakari · waist: Kandora, also Kamarband or Kanakti, a heavy girdle

• Ornaments, the rest of the body — ear: Karnphool (flower-shaped, pearls hanging), Jhumka (bell-shaped), Bedla (upper ear; two or three worn by married women), Jhale · nose: Nath, worn in the left nostril, joined to the ear by a chain called the sankli · wrist: Chuda, Haath Phool (hollow, tied with silken thread) · ankle: Payal, Kada, Nevari (broader end), Rimjhol (tinkles with movement); a set is a jod · toe: Bichhiya, on the second toe

• Attire — angarkhi, kanchli, ghagra, odhni; dhoti

• Turban — safa, paaga or pagri; a pagri about 21 m, a safa 9 to 11 m. Types include the Jodhpuri Safa, Udaipuri Paag, Jaipur bandhej, Jallori (Jalore), Bhatti (Jaisalmer), Alwar, Sirohi, Banswara, and the royal Shahi Jodhpuri paag. Style could indicate region, caste and religion

• Customs — Tyag: a donation given by the bride's father to Charans, Bhats and others at a Rajput marriage · Nata pratha: nata means relationship; two attested senses — widow remarriage (the gazetteer's primary sense, with a brief ceremony of clothes, ornaments, bangles, and rice and a coconut in the lap) and a union formalised without a ceremony through a payment, associated with the Bhil community; its interpretation is contested

• Customs, continued — Mosar: the funeral feast on the 13th day, marking the end of mourning · Dapa: among Bhils and Damors, a payment demanded by the bride's side from the groom's side — the reverse of dowry, seen as the cost of a bride — in three instalments at betrothal, wedding and gauna, default postponing the marriage; settled in the Haadi form of marriage · Gauna: the interval between marriage and the bride's departure to the groom's home · Ghoonghat pratha: the veil, once strict among Rajputs, Gurjars, Ahirs, Jats, Meenas and high-class Muslims

• Widow remarriage was barred among Brahmans, Rajputs, Khatris, Charans, Kayasths, Mahajans — out of which came the Natrayat Rajputs, descended from Chauhan Rajputs of Marwar who took it up

• The saying — Maaru thare desh me upje teen ratan, ik dhola, dooji marwan teejo kasmool rang; kasmool means red

• Turban styles — Atapati Amarshahi, Udayshahi, Khanjarshahi, Shivashahi, Vijayshahi, Shahjahani; varies by length and pech (twists); goldsmiths antewali, Banjaras striped; Mothda at marriage, Lahariya in Shravan, Madeel at Dussehra, floral at Holi; upper classes tied cheera and phenta; ornaments turre, sarpech, baalabandi, dhugadhugi, gospech, pachewari, latkan, fatepech; the saying pagdi ki laaj rakhna

• Angarakhi names — Tansukh, Duttai, Gaaba, Gadar, Mirzai, Dhodi, Kano, Dagla; winter ones stuffed with cotton; Jodhpuri coat still holds its place

• Women — gherdaar kaliyon waala ghaghra, also lehenga; kurti above the waist, still prevalent in Marwar, with kaanchali beneath; special sarees chundari and lahariya

• Textile works — of Sawai Jai Singh's 36 karkhanas, the simvankhana (stitching), rangkhana (colouring) and chhapakhana (printing); dyers are Rangrez or Neelagar

• Pomcha — an odhani with a lotus motif; yellow for a son, pink for a daughter

• Lahariya vs mothara — oblique on one side vs crossing on both; five colours auspicious; Rajashahi has bright pink stripes, samudra lahar broader stripes, both of Jaipur

• Ajrakh — Barmer; printed on both sides in red and blue; geometric, like Turkish tiles

• Printing centres — bold designs at Pipad, Jodhpur, Pali; chunri at Ahar and Bhilwara; Akola the Chheepon ka town; Jodhana chunri of Jodhpur; bandhej of Sikar

• Ornament evidence — clay and stone at Kalibangan and Ahar; Shunga period bangles, khadwas and hanging necklaces; medieval forms from the sculptures of Osian, Nagda, Dilwara, Kumbhalgarh — kundal, necklace, armlet, bangles, nupur, mudrika

• Materials — mokdi bangles of lac, kaatarya of glass

• Teeth — rakhan the gold coating, choonp the gold nail inserted in the middle of the teeth

• Men — murkiyaan, laung, jhaale, chhelkadi (ears), baajuband, kada, narmukh (hands), beethiya, moondriya (fingers)

• Children — hansuli (neck), kade (hands and legs, together kaddulya), moti or loong (ears); the foot sangli with ghunghroos is jhaanjhriya, also painjanni

• Nagaur fair — Nagaur; January/February, not October-November; the Tourism Department's own name for it is the Shri Ramdeo Cattle Fair, and it calls it the second biggest cattle fair in India; cattle competitions run by the Animal Husbandry Department; spices traded alongside livestock, and the Mirchi Bazaar called the largest red chilli market of India

• Kolayat fair — Bikaner; the Kapil Muni fair, on Kartik Purnima; Kapil Muni, held to be an incarnation of Vishnu, meditated there; Kolayat Lake is artificial and sweet-water, with about 52 ghats, marble temples and sandstone pavilions

• Pushkar's opening tithi — Kartik Shukla Ashtami, running to Kartik Purnima; the Tourism Department calls it the world's largest annual camel fair, co-organised with the Pushkar Mela Vikas Samiti; trading peaks in the first half, religious activity in the second

• Baneshwar's tithi — Magh Shukla Purnima; Bhils come from Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to bathe at the confluence of the Mahi and the Som; the Gair, danced by men in red ghagras, is its distinctive performance; organised with the District Administration, Dungarpur and the West Zone Cultural Centre, Udaipur

• Kartik Purnima carries two fairs — the close of Pushkar in Ajmer, and Kolayat in Bikaner

• State-organised festivals with fixed Gregorian dates — Kite Festival 14 January, Matsya Festival 25-26 November, Kumbhalgarh 1-3 December, Ranakpur 21-22 December, Winter Festival end-December; every other festival on the Tourism Department's 2024-2030 list moves with the tithi

• Braj Holi Festival — Deeg, Kaman and Bharatpur; Gulal, Kanuj Gulal, Doodh-Dahi, Laddu and Phoolon ki Holi at the Gokul Chandrama, Madan Mohan, Radha Vallabh and Gopinath temples of Kaman; the procession runs Gopinath to Radha Vallabh and carries Phoolon ki and Lathmar Holi; Deeg has been a separate district since 2023

• Gangaur, the Department's account — Gan Shiva and Gaur Parvati; worship starts on the first day of Chaitra and culminates on the 18th day; clay idols worshipped at home; unmarried girls for a husband, married women for their husband's long life; henna on the eve; immersion in a pond or lake on the last day; the Jaipur procession runs Tripolia Gate to Pondrik Park, with the sawari last, followed by the chobdar

• Teej at Jaipur — the same route as Gangaur, the idol near the end followed by the chobdar; swings, leheriya prints, and ghevar and feeni as the season's sweets; the Department calls it the Sawan festival

• Social evils, prohibited state by state — sati: persuasion failed until 1844, when the Jaipur protectors' committee passed the first bill; Dungarpur, Banswara, Pratapgarh 1846; Kota and Jodhpur 1848; Mewar 1860 · kanya vadh: Mewar first, then Kota; Jodhpur's Code of Rules 1839; Jaipur declared it improper 1844; Bikaner took an oath from its nobles at Gaya in 1839 instead of legislating; nearly ended after 1888 · child and ill-matched marriage: Alwar, 10 December 1903 · dakan pratha: Mewar, 1853, on the advice of Resident Colonel Eden

• Desh Hitaishini Sabha — Udaipur, 2 July 1877, recorded by Kaviraja Shyamaldas in the Veer Vinod; confined to Mewar; two aims, limiting marriage expenditure and prohibiting polygamy; eleven years before the Walterkrit Rajputana Hitkarini Sabha

Interview and Mains Angles

• Rajasthan's largest camel market is also a Kartik Purnima pilgrimage. Does the distinction between sacred and commercial occasions describe anything real about how these fairs worked?
• Gangaur gives eighteen days to a goddess's visit to her maternal home. What does it mean that a society's major women's festival is organised around leaving and returning?
• The waist ornaments are the most elaborate because the garment leaves the waist visible. How much of a craft tradition is dictated by the clothing it accompanies?
• Baneshwar is called the Kumbh of the tribals. Is that description a recognition or an assimilation?
• A turban could tell you a man's region, caste and religion at a glance. What does a society gain, and what does it enforce, by making dress legible in that way?
• Dapa runs from the groom's family to the bride's, and tyag from the bride's father outward. Does a region containing both payment directions tell us anything a single account of "dowry" would miss?
• Nata gave widows a route to remarriage, and the castes that barred it produced a separate caste of those who took it. Is a custom that creates a new caste a reform or a containment?
• Tyag was paid by a bride's father to the Charans — the same community whose poetry preserved Rajasthan's history. Should we read bardic literature differently knowing part of its economic base was marriage payments?
• The state's own festival calendar has five entries fixed to a Gregorian date and eighteen that move with a tithi. Which of those two lists is a cultural calendar, and which is an events programme?
• Every nineteenth-century reform body in Rajasthan went after what a marriage or a funeral cost, not after what it meant. Was that restraint, or was it the only thing an outside power could reach?

Practice

• Practice: Social Life — 64 questions built from this chapter: 57 MCQs, 4 assertion-reason and 3 match-the-following, plus flashcards and one-liners.

More in This Series

• Religious Life: Saints, Sects and Folk Deities — the deities whose fairs these are
• Schools of Painting and Handicrafts — meenakari, leheriya and bandhani, made there and worn here
• Caution for Readers — the claims that are genuinely unsettled

Aggregator Watch

Unresolved claims from this box are collected, with what was checked, on the Caution for Readers page.

Sources & Verification

Checked as of 19 August 2026.

Facts verified for this chapter include: the Pushkar fair's timing in the month of Kartik, ending on Kartik Purnima, corresponding to late October and early November, and its dual religious and livestock character; the Baneshwar fair at Dungarpur in February, its description as the "Kumbh of the tribals" and its name deriving from the Shiva temple there; the Nagaur fair in October/November as among the largest cattle-trading fairs; the Kolayat fair at Bikaner in November; the Gangaur festival beginning the day after Holi and running for eighteen days in Chaitra, its principal day on Chaitra Shukla Tritiya, the derivation of the name from Gan for Shiva and Gaur for Parvati, the account that Gauri comes to her maternal home on the second day of Holi and Isar comes after eighteen days to take her back, the observance by women through fasts, songs and rites, the application of the goddess's sindoor to the women's own hair parting, the procession and immersion of the images of Gauri and Isar, the carrying of pitchers to the water, and leheriya and bandhani as the dress worn; and, for ornaments, Rakhdi / Borla as head ornaments with the spherical or bell-like shape that distinguishes the borla from an ordinary maang tika, Timaniya — also called Aad — as a square or rectangular choker among India's oldest neck pieces, the neck sequence running Timaniya or Aad, then Kanthi, then Rani Haar or Maharani Haar, Bajubandh — also Angada — as the upper armlet worn by brides and made with meenakari, and Kandora, also Kamarband or Kanakti, as the heavy waist girdle.

A claim examined and declined. One source consulted describes the Kolayat fair as "the only fair specifically for trees" in the world. That does not match the general characterisation of Kolayat as a religious fair at the tank, and no corroboration was found. The place and the November timing are carried; the claim is not, and it is listed in the Aggregator Watch so that a candidate who meets it recognises it.

Added on 20 August 2026, closing three of the gaps this chapter declared. Verified for ornaments: Nath worn in the left nostril and joined to the ear by a chain called the sankli; Karnphool as flower-shaped with pearls hanging downwards; Jhumka, also jhumar or jhumri, as bell-shaped, a void hemisphere with bells attached; Bedla as worn on the upper ear, with two or three worn together by married women; Jhale; Haath Phool as covering the wrist from all sides, hollow within and tied with a silken thread; Chuda; Payal, Kada, Nevari (resembling the kadi but with a broader end) and Rimjhol (tinkling with the movement of the foot), with a set of ankle ornaments called a jod; and Bichhiya as the toe ring worn by married Hindu women, typically on the second toe of each foot. Verified for the turban: the names safa, paaga and pagri; the lengths of about 21 metres for a pagri and 9 to 11 metres for a safa; the named regional types including the Jodhpuri Safa, Udaipuri Paag, Jaipur bandhej, Jallori, Bhatti, Alwar, Sirohi and Banswara, and the royal Shahi Jodhpuri paag; and the report that a turban's style could indicate a man's region, caste and religion. Verified for customs: tyag as a donation given by the bride's father to the Charans, Bhats and people of other castes at a Rajput marriage; and nata pratha as a customary practice formalising a relationship without a marriage ceremony through a payment, the word nata meaning relationship, reported in Rajasthan, Gujarat and parts of Madhya Pradesh and associated particularly with the Bhil community.

On nata pratha, and why this page is careful. The characterisation of the practice is genuinely contested — a published study in a peer-reviewed journal asks in its title whether it represents freedom or captivity for women — and contemporary reporting raises serious concerns about coercion and the involvement of minors. This page records what the custom is and that its interpretation is disputed, and does not present it as either a settled institution or a benign one. Definitions of the practice also differ between sources in ways this pass did not resolve.

Correction, 20 August 2026 — nata pratha

What was wrong. Between 19 and 20 August 2026 this page defined nata pratha only as a relationship formalised without a marriage ceremony through a payment, associated with the Bhil community. That definition is not false, but it was incomplete in a way that could cost a mark.

What is right. Nata has two attested senses, and the one this page omitted is the one a state government source gives first: the Rajasthan District Gazetteer states that the remarriage of a widow is called nata. The omission is corroborated by a caste name — the Natrayat Rajputs, descended from Chauhan Rajputs of Marwar who took up widow remarriage and were separated from the wider Rajput community for it.

When corrected. 20 August 2026. Both senses now appear in the body, in the trap table and in Prelims Focus, and the Aggregator Watch row has been rewritten to record the change rather than to hide it. A reader who learned only the first sense from us can find the correction here.

Added on 20 August 2026, from Rajasthan Government district gazetteers. The fair tithis are now carried: Ramdevra at Ramdevra village near Pokhran, Jaisalmer district, from Bhadrapada Shukla Dwitiya to Ekadashi, at Baba Ramdevji's samadhi; Kaila Devi at Karauli on the Kalisil river from Chaitra Badi 12 for a fortnight; Mallinath at Tilwara, Barmer, from Chaitra Badi Ekadashi to Chaitra Sudi Ekadashi, among the largest cattle fairs, drawing cows, camels, sheep, goats and horses; and Shri Mahavirji at Chandangaon, Karauli, a Digambara Jain fair closing on Vaisakha Krishna Dwitiya with the Rath Yatra taking the image to the Gambhiri river for kalash abhishek in a golden chariot drawn by bullocks. From the Karauli district gazetteer directly: Karauli became the 32nd district of Rajasthan on 19 July 1997, formed out of Sawai Madhopur, with Todabhim, Sapotra, Nadauti and Mandrayal joining Hindaun and Karauli as its sub-divisions. From the Pratapgarh district gazetteer: mosar as the feast on the thirteenth day after a death, following the twelfth-day rites and the mourner's return to routine life; dapa among the Bhils and Damors as a payment demanded by the bride's side from the groom's side, seen as the cost of a bride, paid in three instalments at betrothal, wedding and gauna, with default postponing the ceremonies, and settled in the Haadi form of marriage; gauna as the interval between marriage and the bride's departure; ghoonghat pratha and the communities that kept it strictly; nata as widow remarriage with its brief ceremony of clothes, ornaments, bangles and rice and a coconut placed in the lap; and the castes among which widow remarriage was not permitted — Brahmans, Rajputs, Khatris, Charans, Kayasths and Mahajans.

A note on these gazetteers, and how far they carry. The Rajasthan District Gazetteers are publications of the Government of Rajasthan, and the volumes used here were issued in 2023. They are a state administrative source, which makes them authoritative on district formation, on official terminology and on what the state records about a practice — but they are still an official account of communities described from outside, in the same way the colonial-era compilations discussed elsewhere on this site are. Where a gazetteer describes a custom of a tribal community, this page attributes the description to the gazetteer inside the sentence rather than stating it as a plain fact. The clearest instance is dapa, which the gazetteer files under a heading called "dowry" while describing a payment that runs the opposite way — the label is the source's, the direction is the evidence, and this page reports both.

Coverage stated honestly. Kanwar is named in preparation material as a custom of this syllabus and was not found in any source consulted, including the district gazetteers. It is not defined here rather than being written from memory, and it remains in the Aggregator Watch as the outstanding work on this chapter, along with occasion- and colour-specific turban conventions and the opening tithi of the Shri Mahavirji fair.

Flagged rather than asserted: (a) the Kolayat tree-fair claim; (b) the opening tithi of the Shri Mahavirji fair, on which sources conflict, and Baba Ramdevji's dates, on which a Government of India page and our own religious-life chapter conflict; (c) occasion- and colour-specific turban conventions, as distinct from the regional types now carried; (d) the definition of kanwar; (e) any settled characterisation of nata pratha, which is contested; and (f) Gregorian dates for any festival, which move annually and for which the lunar date is the stable answer.