Bestu Varas · Nutan Varsh Festival The first day of the Gujarati year, the morning after the Diwali new moon, and the one day on which the Vikram Samvat number changes in Gujarat.

English

Bestu Varas · Nutan Varsh

हिन्दी

बेस्तु वरस

ગુજરાતી

બેસતું વર્ષ · નૂતન વર્ષ

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.

1. Tuesday, 10 November 2026
2. Saturday, 30 October 2027
3. Wednesday, 18 October 2028

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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 first day of the Gujarati year, the morning after the Diwali new moon, and the one day on which the Vikram Samvat number changes in Gujarat. Where the north counts the same era from Chaitra in spring, Gujarat and Saurashtra count it from Kartak sud Ekam, so the Gujarati Samvat year runs Kartak to Aso and a date in September carries a different number from a date in December of the same Gregorian year. The morning is for the temple and the elders, saal mubarak is said to everyone met, and the trader opens the new chopda; the annakut, a hill of cooked food, is raised before Krishna in the haveli on the same day.

Deity

Lakshmi, Krishna, Bali

Kind

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

Kartak sud Ekam, the tithi running at sunrise. Because the Amavasya can hold a whole day after the Diwali evening, Bestu Varas is sometimes two days after the Lakshmi Pujan and not one; the panchang settles it, not the count.

Sunrise 06:06, sunset 17:40, 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.

No fast is kept. The day is a feast and the first sweet of the year is eaten before anything else.

Gujarat, Saurashtra and the Gujarati diaspora keep this as the new year; Maharashtra keeps the same tithi as Balipratipada, the north as Govardhan Puja and Annakut, and Karnataka as Bali Padyami, but none of them turns the year on it. Kutch keeps a further year of its own, the Ashadhi Samvat, which begins at Ashadh sud Ekam in the monsoon.

The dates above are the Gujarat 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.

Opening a shop or starting a new venture. Abhijit, the eighth muhurtham of the day, is the standing fallback for an opening and is marked on the windows below. The lagna rule here is the general one for a new undertaking, a fixed sign for best and a dual sign for acceptable, since almanacs do not agree on a single list for a shop.

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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.