Holi in the context of Phalguna

A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or Eid. A festival constitutes typical cases of glocalization, as well as the high culture-low culture interrelationship. Next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere and Easter in the southern.

Festivals often serve to fulfill specific communal purposes, especially in regard to commemoration or thanking to the gods, goddesses or saints: they are called patronal festivals. They may also provide entertainment, which was particularly important to local communities before the advent of mass-produced entertainment. Festivals that focus on cultural or ethnic topics also seek to inform community members of their traditions; the involvement of elders sharing stories and experience provides a means for unity among families. Attendants of festivals are often motivated by a desire for escapism, socialization and camaraderie; the practice has been seen as a means of creating geographical connection, belonging and adaptability.

A religious festival is a time of special importance marked by adherents to that religion. Religious festivals are commonly celebrated on recurring cycles in a calendar year or lunar calendar. The science of religious rites and festivals is known as heortology.

Within the Evangelical Lutheran branch of Christianity, "festival" is part of the ranking of feast days in the liturgical kalendar.

Hinduism (specifically the yogic school) is currently practiced by a minority of residents of China. The religion itself has a very limited presence in modern mainland China, but archaeological evidence suggests a significant presence of Hinduism in different provinces of medieval China. Hindu influences were also absorbed in to Buddhism and got mixed with Chinese mythology over its history. Practices originating in the Vedic tradition of ancient India such as yoga and meditation are also popular in China. Tibet, a Buddhist territory known as the "roof of the world", is governed as part of China.

Hindu communities, particularly through Tamil merchant guilds of Ayyavole and Manigramam, once thrived in medieval south China. Evidence of Tamil Shiva motifs and temples, such as in the Kaiyuan temple, continued to be discovered in Quanzhou, Fujian, a province of southeast China. A small community of Tamil immigrant workers currently exists in Hong Kong.