Ambubachi Mela Observance The four days in Ahar on which the Earth, and the goddess Kamakhya with her, is held to menstruate.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Ambubachi Mela
- हिन्दी
- अम्बुबाची मेला
Only the names actually in use are listed. A blank script is not an omission: the day may simply not be kept there, or be kept under a different festival's name.
UTC+5:30
The date of a festival depends on the place: 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
Looking for the calendar this day belongs to
This day does not fall again in the next three years at this place. A few days are tied to the solar month rather than to the civil year, so a year can hold two of them or none.
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.
The hour
The rule in words
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 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.
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.
Every date here is computed from the Sun and Moon for the place entered, by the rule printed beside it. 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.