Ayilyam Pooja Festival The fifth day of the bright fortnight of Shravana, when milk is poured at the snake mound and at the naga stones, and images of the serpent are drawn beside the door with cow dung or turmeric.

1. Monday, 27 September 2027
2. Saturday, 14 October 2028
3. Thursday, 4 October 2029

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Worked out for Chennai, Lahiri ayanamsa. A date is a function of the place: set yours above and the next three come back for where you are.

The fifth day of the bright fortnight of Shravana, when milk is poured at the snake mound and at the naga stones, and images of the serpent are drawn beside the door with cow dung or turmeric. Ploughing and digging are left alone for the day, since the serpent is in the earth; the ropes and the fields rest.

Deity

Nagas, Shesha, Vasuki

Kind

Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.

Ayilyam, the Ashlesha nakshatra, at sunrise in Kanni, and the day nearer the Pournami when the star comes twice in the month. Kerala reads its naga day by the STAR and not by the Panchami tithi the rest of the country keeps, so it falls elsewhere in the month entirely.

Sunrise 05:58, sunset 18:02, UTC+5.5. These are the instants the rule is read at, not the temple's own puja times, which every temple prints for itself.

Many women fast for their brothers' safety and eat after the offering. Milk, lajaa (parched grain) and sesame are given to the naga.

English

Ayilyam Pooja

മലയാളം

ആയില്യം പൂജ

हिन्दी

नाग पंचमी

ગુજરાતી

નાગ પાંચમ

मराठी

नागपंचमी

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.

Kept in Maharashtra, the Gangetic plain and Karnataka. Gujarat keeps it half a month later, on Shravan vad Pancham, five days after Raksha Bandhan, so the Gujarati Nag Pancham and the northern one fall in different fortnights of the same month. Andhra and Telangana keep Nagula Chavithi in Kartika instead, and Tamil Nadu marks the monthly Ayilyam day for the nagas. Kerala worships the nagas in the family’s own grove, the sarpa kavu kept uncut at the south-west corner of the compound, with milk, turmeric and the noorum palum. Mannarasala and Vettikode, where the groves are temples in their own right, fill on this day, and the Mannarasala Ayilyam procession carries the images from the illam to the grove.

The dates above are the Kerala 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.

• Srikalahasti Temple 97 km
  Tirupati district, Andhra Pradesh

  This day is kept for Nagas, and the gazetteer keeps this temple for Sarpa and Kala sarpa. Vayu, air, and the classic kshetram for Rahu-Ketu and Sarpa dosha nivarana pooja, booked for the same morning.

• Keezhperumpallam Naganathaswamy Temple 216 km
  Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu

  This day is kept for Nagas, and the gazetteer keeps this temple for Sarpa and Kala sarpa. The Ketu sthalam, near Poompuhar, where Ketu worships Sivan with a serpent body and a human face.

• Paampuranathar Temple, Thirupampuram 246 km
  Thiruvarur, Tamil Nadu

  This day is kept for Nagas, and the gazetteer keeps this temple for Sarpa and Kala sarpa. The delta sthalam where Rahu and Ketu are given human faces and worshipped together, and the serpents are said to have been freed of a curse.

• Thirunageswaram Naganathaswamy Temple 251 km
  Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu

  This day is kept for Nagas, and the gazetteer keeps this temple for Sarpa and Kala sarpa. visited for Kala sarpa, Naga dosham and delayed marriage.

• Ghati Subramanya Temple 308 km
  Bengaluru Rural, Karnataka

  This day is kept for Nagas, and the gazetteer keeps this temple for Sarpa and Kala sarpa. Bengaluru’s Sarpa dosha temple, where Subramanya faces east and Narasimha west in the same idol.

• Sri Subrahmanyeswara Swamy Temple, Mopidevi 339 km
  Krishna, Andhra Pradesh

  This day is kept for Nagas, and the gazetteer keeps this temple for Sarpa and Kala sarpa. The Sarpa dosha kshetram of coastal Andhra, where the Lord is said to have come out of an anthill in a field.

12 more temples in this gazetteer are recorded for the day. Find temples near you.

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. Your family's own temple comes first, and its calendar is the one that decides.

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.