Bathukamma 2026

About Bathukamma

Bathukamma is Telangana's nine-day flower festival, kept mainly by women, who stack seasonal flowers into a cone, sing around it each evening and set it afloat in a lake or tank. In 2026 it begins on Saturday, 10 October 2026 with Engili Pula Bathukamma and ends with Saddula Bathukamma around Durgashtami. It is Telangana's state festival.

Late in the monsoon, the open scrubland of Telangana turns yellow with tangedu and pink and white with gunuka. For nine evenings, women carry plates of these flowers, stacked into a tall cone, to a common ground in the village or colony, set them in the middle, and sing and clap in a circle around them. The name is usually read as "come alive, Mother": bathuku is to live, amma is mother. The goddess here is Gauri, and the festival is hers.

How a bathukamma is built

The work is shared. Men and boys go out to the fields and roadside scrub to gather flowers; women build the stack. It goes on a taambalam, a wide brass plate, often lined with pumpkin leaves. Flowers are laid in circular rows, one colour at a time, each ring a little smaller than the one below, until the stack looks like a temple tower. Seven layers is common, but families build them as tall as they like.

On top sits Gauramma, a small cone of turmeric paste that stands for the goddess. On the last day, married women touch some of that turmeric to their mangalsutra before the stack goes into the water.

Many of these flowers are medicinal, and people point out that a festival which ends with hundreds of flower stacks dissolving in village tanks puts them back into the water rather than polluting it.

The nine days

Each evening has its own name, taken from the food offered to the goddess that day.

1. Day 1 · Engili Pula Bathukamma
   On Mahalaya Amavasya

   The first stack, of flowers gathered the day before. The offering is sesame with rice flour or broken rice.

2. Day 2 · Atukula Bathukamma
   Flattened rice

   Atukulu (poha) with jaggery and boiled lentils.

3. Day 3 · Muddapappu Bathukamma
   Soft dal

   Soft-cooked lentils with milk and jaggery.

4. Day 4 · Nanabiyyam Bathukamma
   Soaked rice

   Rice soaked in water, with milk and jaggery.

5. Day 5 · Atla Bathukamma
   Dosas

   Small pancakes, atlu, made at home.

6. Day 6 · Aligina Bathukamma
   No offering

   The day the goddess is said to be sulking. No food is offered and, in many villages, no stack is played.

7. Day 7 · Vepakayala Bathukamma
   Neem-fruit shapes

   Rice-flour dough shaped like neem fruits and fried.

8. Day 8 · Vennamuddala Bathukamma
   Butter and sesame

   Sesame, butter or ghee and jaggery.

9. Day 9 · Saddula Bathukamma
   Five rice dishes

   The largest stacks and the biggest gatherings. Saddulu, five flavoured rice dishes, are offered: curd, tamarind, lemon, coconut and sesame.

Evenings of songs, and the last immersion

Bathukamma songs are not written down in most families. They pass from mother to daughter, and they tell stories: of the goddess, of a daughter married into a distant village, of farm work and of local history. The best known refrain is "uyyalo", repeated at the end of each line while the women clap and turn in a slow circle.

When the singing is done, the women lift the stacks on their heads, walk to a tank, lake or stream, and set them afloat. Afterwards they share maleeda, crushed roti or flatbread mixed with jaggery or sugar, and on the last day the saddulu. On Saddula Bathukamma, Hyderabad's Tank Bund on the Hussain Sagar fills with stacks and singers, and every district town does its own version. In 2025 Telangana set two Guinness World Records during the festival, for a flower stack 63.11 feet high and for 1,354 women performing together.

Where the festival comes from

There are several stories, and families tell different ones.

• One links the festival to the Vemulavada temple: when a Chola army carried away the Shiva linga there, Parvati was left grieving, and the people consoled her with flowers and songs. The name, in this version, comes from Bruhadamma.
• Another speaks of a Chola king's daughter, Bathukamma, who was blessed with long life by Lakshmi, which is why young girls pray during the festival for a good husband.
• A third ties it to the Kakatiya kingdom at Warangal and to Rani Rudramadevi, who is said to have led processions for the local mother goddess.

Historians also trace it to older harvest and fertility customs in the Deccan that may be older than any of these kings. The festival does not need one origin to work.

A state festival, at home and abroad

During the movement for a separate state, Bathukamma became a sign of Telangana's own culture, and since Telangana was formed in 2014 it has been the state festival, with a government holiday on Saddula Bathukamma. It sits in the same season as Sharad Navratri, and the last day is followed within days by Dasara, when people in Telangana exchange jammi (shami) leaves as gold, embrace in Alai Balai, and hope to spot a palapitta, the Indian roller, which is thought lucky. See Dussehra for that day and Telangana Formation Day for the state's own anniversary.

Telugu associations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia hold Bathukamma on the nearest weekend, often in a school hall or a park with a pond.

What to write

How to wish someone on Bathukamma

A Bathukamma wish is for the women of the house and the flowers they gather. Mention the stack, the evening songs, the lake they go to, or Saddula Bathukamma itself. "Bathukamma panduga subhakankshalu" works in Telugu. For friends abroad, a line about their association's celebration lands well. Keep politics out of it: the festival belongs to everyone in Telangana.

Write a few lines in your own words, pick a design and share it as one link on WhatsApp, Instagram or anywhere else. They open an animated card made just for them, with no app and no sign-up.

Language tip: English, Telugu.

When is Bathukamma in 2026 and 2027?

Bathukamma is set by the Hindu lunisolar calendar, so it falls on a different date each year. In 2027 it falls 11 days earlier than in 2026. Bathukamma runs 9 days.

Frequently asked questions