Latitude, longitude and time zone 13.08, 80.27
Asia/Kolkata · UTC+5:30
The date of a festival depends on the place.
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A tithi that ends at dusk in Chennai can still be running at dusk a thousand kilometres west, which moves the day. Sunrise and sunset here are computed for the place above.
When it falls next
Assam calendar, computed for Chennai
- Tuesday, 22 June 2027
- Thursday, 22 June 2028
- Friday, 22 June 2029
Where Ambubachi Mela falls on the solar year, and how far the date moves between occurrences.
- 2027: 22 Jun
- 2028: 22 Jun, 1 day later
- 2029: 22 Jun, 1 day earlier
The dates, year by year
Assam calendar, computed for Chennai
What the day is
The four days in Ahar on which the Earth, and the goddess Kamakhya with her, is held to menstruate. The doors of the Kamakhya temple on Nilachal hill above Guwahati are shut, no puja is done and no image is bathed, and the strict undertake no ploughing, no sowing and no cooking of the usual kind, the widows and the sanyasis eating uncooked food instead. The temple opens on the fourth day and the mela draws sadhus, tantrics and several lakh pilgrims, who are given a piece of the red cloth held to have covered the goddess.
- Deity
- Kamakhya, Shakti
- Kind
- Observance Days marked, watched or begun, without a fast or a feast of their own.
Significance
Ambubachi honours the Earth as a mother who, like every woman, rests for a few days each year, and Kamakhya, the goddess of creation, is held to be in her courses with her. The doors of the temple close, the ground is not ploughed and no seed is sown, which is the monsoon's pause in the farming year. For many families it is a lesson in respect: what is natural in a woman is not unclean, but a time of rest. The mela that follows the reopening is one of the great gatherings of the Shakta traditions, drawing sadhus and tantrics from all over the country.
How it is kept
The puja as a household does it, in order. Tick each step as it is done.
Ambubachi Mela: how it is kept
Keep ready
- fruit and curd for the three days
- a cloth to cover the household shrine
- nothing planted and no tool taken to the ground
- a place in the queue for the fourth morning
The steps
0 of 8 done
What is cooked
Nothing is cooked for three days in the houses that keep it fully: fruit, curd, soaked chira and a little jaggery are what is eaten, and the hearth is cold. The fourth day breaks it with a full meal of rice, dal, khar and a fish curry in the households that eat fish, cooked after the goddess has been bathed.
The hour
Clock times for Tuesday, 22 June 2027 at Chennai
Ahar 7 to Ahar 10 in the Assamese solar calendar, which falls on 22 to 25 June in most years; the doors shut on the first day and open on the fourth.
The main rite. From the seventh to the tenth day of Ahar in the Assamese solar calendar, usually the twenty-second to the twenty-fifth of June; the temple doors shut on the first day and open at dawn on the fourth.
This day's rule names no hour of its own: it is fixed by the tithi or the nakshatra running at sunrise. The rule above is the whole of it, and the day's own times are below.
The day itself
| What | When | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Tithi | Krishna Thritiyai from previous day 10:36 until 13:08 | then Krishna Chaturthi until next day 15:43 |
| Nakshatra | Uttara Ashadha until 08:09 | then Shravana until next day 11:18 |
| Rahu kaal | 15:24 to 17:01 (1 h 37 min) | the eighth of the daylight left alone for a beginning |
| Yamaganda | 08:57 to 10:34 (1 h 37 min) | the eighth ruled by Yama, also avoided |
| Gulika | 12:11 to 13:48 (1 h 37 min) | the eighth of Saturn’s son; what is done in it is said to repeat |
| Abhijit | 11:45 to 12:37 (0 h 52 min) | the midday muhurta, good for most things |
| Moonrise | 21:17 | moonset next day 09:05 |
For Tuesday, 22 June 2027 at Chennai. A time marked "previous day" or "next day" is on the clock of that day.
The fast
Those who keep it eat no cooked rice for the three days and take fruit, curd and uncooked food. The temple gives out no prasad while the doors are shut.
What is avoided
No ploughing, sowing or digging of the earth, no puja at the household shrine, and no reading of the scriptures aloud through the three days. Widows and the strict eat no cooked rice, taking fruit, curd and uncooked food instead.
The name
The same day, in every language that has a word for it
Where the regions differ
Kamakhya is the centre, and the Shakta shrines of the east keep the same days; the rest of India does not mark them. Traditions vary on how strictly a household keeps the bar on sowing and on cooking.
In other regions
- Bengal
- Bengal prints the Ambubachi days in its panjika, and many older widows keep the three days on uncooked food.
- Assam (the dates above)
- Kamakhya on Nilachal hill above Guwahati is the centre, with the mela at the temple and the farming villages of Assam keeping the bar on the plough.
The dates above are the Assam reckoning, because that is the calendar this key belongs to. Switch the tradition on the calendar page to see how another one dates the same day.
Where this day is kept
Nearest first from Chennai, with what is recorded about each.
- Kamakhya Devi Temple, Nilachal 1,883 kmGuwahati, Assam
The entry for this day names Guwahati. The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. The doors of the Kamakhya temple on Nilachal hill above Guwahati are shut, no puja is done and no image is bathed, and the strict undertake no ploughing, no sowing and no cooking of the usual kind, the widows and the sanyasis eating uncooked food instead.
Temples of Shakti near you
Not recorded for this day in particular: the nearest temples of the day's own gods, for a reader whose own temple is not listed above.
- Chennai, Tamil Nadu · Adi Kamakshi and Kamakshi, standing on the pancha agni penance
- Chennai, Tamil Nadu · Devi Karumariamman in her three forms
- Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu · Kamakshi Devi seated in padmasana with the Sri Chakra
- Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu · Adhiparasakthi as the swayambhu in the anthill
Your family's own temple comes first, and its calendar is the one that decides.
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A temple is listed here only where the gazetteer's own line names this day, or where this day's own entry names the town, or where the day belongs to the ancestors or the nagas and the temple is recorded for that rite. Where neither table says anything, nothing is listed as kept for the day; where fewer than three are, the nearest temples of the day's own gods are added under a heading of their own.
Mantras
The prayers said with the day. Each opens with its words and meaning.
Every date here is computed from the Sun and Moon for the place entered, by the rule printed beside it.
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A printed panchangam can differ by a day where an almanac reads a tithi at a different instant, and a family's own custom always comes first. Where the practice genuinely varies, the text says so rather than choosing for you.