Bonalu 2027

About Bonalu

Bonalu is Telangana's month-long festival of offerings to the goddess Mahakali and her local forms, held through the Telugu month of Ashadha. In 2027 it opens at the Jagadamba Mahankali temple in Golconda Fort on Thursday, 8 July 2027, moves to Secunderabad for Lashkar Bonalu and ends in the old city of Hyderabad. It is the state festival, with a government holiday on the last Monday.

On a Bonalu Sunday in Hyderabad, women walk to the neighbourhood temple with a brass or clay pot balanced on their heads. The pot is smeared with turmeric, dotted with kumkum, ringed with neem twigs and topped with a small oil lamp. Inside is rice cooked with milk and jaggery, sometimes with curd. That pot is the bonam, and the plural, bonalu, gives the festival its name. The word is usually traced to bhojanam, a meal: the offering is food cooked at home and carried to the goddess.

Why Ashadha, and why a vow

Ashadha, which falls in July and early August, is the month of early rains and, in the past, of fevers and cholera. Many families explain the festival this way: in Ashadha the goddess comes home to her mother's house, and people cook for her as they would for a married daughter visiting for the season.

The Hyderabad festival as it is held today is tied to a cholera epidemic of 1813. As the story is told at the Ujjaini Mahankali temple, soldiers of a battalion from Secunderabad were posted at Ujjain when the disease struck at home. They prayed at the Mahakali temple there and vowed to set up the goddess in Secunderabad if their families were spared. A wooden image was installed in 1814 in what is now General Bazaar, and the temple followed. Telangana officials still date the annual vow to that year.

The offering itself is older. Scholars point to the Kakatiya-era text Siddeshwara Charitra, which describes Rani Rudrama Devi offering a bonam to the goddess Ekavira, and a 1516 Telugu inscription from Gobbur that records tax grants for Bonalu and Rangam.

The season, temple by temple

Bonalu is not one day. Each part of the twin cities has its turn, and the order stays the same every year.

1. Opening · Golconda Bonalu
   Jagadamba Mahankali temple, Golconda Fort

   The first Thursday or Sunday of Ashadha. The first bonam is offered at Langar Houz and a procession climbs to the fort temple. Bonams are offered here on Thursdays and Sundays through the month.

2. Early Ashadha · Balkampet
   Yellamma Kalyanam

   The wedding festival of Yellamma at Balkampet, a three-day event with the Edurkolu welcome, the wedding and a chariot procession.

3. Third Sunday · Lashkar Bonalu
   Ujjaini Mahankali temple, Secunderabad

   The biggest single day, with queues from before dawn. Secunderabad schools often get the next day off.

4. Monday after · Rangam
   Ujjaini Mahankali temple

   A woman standing on an upturned clay pot speaks as the goddess and foretells rain, harvest and health for the year.

5. Last Sunday · Old city Bonalu
   Simhavahini Mahankali at Lal Darwaza, and Haribowli

   The old city's turn. Ministers offer silk clothes to the goddess at the main temples.

6. Final Monday · Ghatam procession
   Haribowli to the Musi

   The Ghatam of the Akkanna Madanna temple leads a procession on an elephant and is immersed in the river. This is the state holiday.

Outside Hyderabad, towns and villages across Telangana hold their own Bonalu on a Sunday that suits the local temple, and Telugu associations abroad hold one on a weekend. The state government gives money to temples for the season: in 2026 it released Rs 15.05 crore for 3,427 temples in the old GHMC limits.

Pothuraju, Rangam, Ghatam and Thottelu

A few figures and objects appear at every Bonalu, and knowing them makes the procession easier to follow.

Pothuraju is the goddess's brother and guardian. He is played by a bare-chested man in a short red dhoti, his body coated in turmeric, kumkum on his forehead and bells on his ankles. He dances at the head of the procession and cracks a whip to clear the way. He also steadies women who go into a trance, called sigam, with neem branches tied at their waists.

Rangam is the oracle at the Ujjaini Mahankali temple on the morning after Lashkar Bonalu. Ghatam is a copper pot dressed as the goddess and carried by a priest whose body is smeared with turmeric. It goes out on procession through the season and is immersed at the end.

Thottelu are small, bright paper-and-bamboo frames that groups of devotees carry to the temple as their offering. The procession of offering carts at the close is called the phalaharam bandi.

Visiting or joining in

Bonalu sits in the middle of the Telangana festival year. It follows Ugadi, the Telugu new year, and Telangana Formation Day on 2 June, and it comes before Bathukamma, the flower festival of the autumn.

What to write

How to wish someone on Bonalu

A Bonalu wish is a prayer for the family's health, because the festival began as a vow against epidemic. Mention the bonam pot, the goddess (Mahankali, Yellamma or the local Ammavaru) or the family's own temple. "Bonala panduga subhakankshalu" is the usual Telugu greeting. For a colleague, a simple line about the goddess's blessings is enough. Keep politics out of it: the festival belongs to every neighbourhood that carries a pot.

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 Bonalu in each year?

Bonalu is set by the Hindu lunisolar calendar, so it falls on a different date each year. In 2027 it falls 8 days earlier than in 2026. Bonalu runs 26 days.

Frequently asked questions