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Nallur Ther Chariot Festival in Jaffna/Nallur
The Nallur Ther Chariot Festival is a twenty-five-day observance at Jaffna's Nallur Kandaswamy Temple honoring Lord Murugan, regarded as Sri Lanka's longest religious festival. Daily processions with escalating ceremonial vehicles culminate on the twenty-first day in the Ther Thiruvizha, when devotees pull a massive wooden chariot bearing the deity through Nallur's streets, drawing hundreds of thousands of Tamil pilgrims.
For twenty-five days each year, Jaffna's Nallur Kandaswamy Temple hosts what is widely described as Sri Lanka's longest single religious festival, a sustained devotional marathon honoring Lord Murugan, the Hindu god of war and youth, known regionally as Kandaswamy or Skanda.