Tihar is a five-day-long Hindu festival celebrated in Nepal which comes soon after Dashain. It is same as Deepawali celebrated by the hindus in India, Sri Lanka,Bangladesh, Guyana, Surinam, Europe and NortH America but with a regional variation. In Nepal, all Hindu ethnic groups celebrate this festival with their own variation.For the majority Hindus, it is the festival of lights. 95% of the people in Nepal are Hindus and they celebrate tihar ( deepawali or dewali) by worshiping the Hindu goddess Laxmi for all five days. The majority brahmins and the chhetries communities celebrate it for five days. Among the ethnic newari community in the kathmandu valley, it is popularly known as Deepawali or Swanti. The festival is celebrated from Trayodashi of Kartik Krishna to Kartik Shukla Dwitiya every year.
Tihar in general signifies the festival of lights, where diyas are lit both inside and outside the houses to make it illuminate at night. The five-day festival is considered to be of great importance as it shows reverence to not just the humans and the Gods, but also to the animals like crows, cows and dogs who maintain an intense relationship with humans. People make patterns on the floor of living rooms or courtyards using materials such as colored rice, dry flour, colored sand or flower petals outside of their house, called Rangoli which is meant to be a sacred welcoming area for the Gods and Goddesses of Hinduism.
