Datta Jayanti

1. Wednesday, 23 December 2026
2. Monday, 13 December 2027
3. Friday, 1 December 2028

See the whole year on the calendar →

The full moon of Margashirsha, held to be the birth of Dattatreya, the son of Atri and Anasuya in whom Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva stand as one figure with three heads and the four dogs and the cow beside him. The Gurucharitra is read through the seven days before it in the Datta houses of Maharashtra, and Audumbar, Narsobawadi and Ganagapur keep the largest festival. The birth is held to have been at dusk, which is the hour of the arati.

Deity

Dattatreya, Anasuya, Atri

Kind

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

Dattatreya is the guru of gurus, the one teacher in whom Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva stand together, and his birth is kept as a day for honouring every teacher. The story tells that he learnt from twenty-four teachers in nature, the earth, the river, the bee and the child among them, and families tell it to children as the lesson that anything can teach. The Datta sampradaya of Maharashtra and northern Karnataka, with Shripad Shrivallabh, Narasimha Saraswati and Swami Samarth, reads the Gurucharitra through the seven days before. The four dogs beside him are said to be the four Vedas, and the cow behind him the earth.

The naivedya is sweet and simple: sutarfeni or a plain sheera of semolina and ghee, with milk and sugar. Those keeping the saptah eat one meal a day through the week, without onion or garlic, and break it after the arati on the Pournima with the sheera and a little of the prasad from the padukas.

Margashirsha Pournima running at pradosha, because Dattatreya is held to have been born at dusk and the Marathi panchangs take the Pournima that covers that hour; else the Pournima at sunrise.

The main rite. Margashirsha Pournima as it runs at dusk, the hour of the birth, when the arati and the cradle ceremony are held.

Sunrise 06:27, sunset 17:49, 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.

The day itself

For Wednesday, 23 December 2026 at Chennai. A time marked "previous day" or "next day" is on the clock of that day.

Those reading the Gurucharitra keep one meal a day through the seven days. The offering is a plain one, since the deity is held to take bhiksha, a handful of food asked for at the door.

Those reading the Gurucharitra keep one meal a day through the seven days and do not break off the reading once it is begun. A beggar is not turned from the door, since Datta is held to come asking for alms.

Maharashtra, Goa and northern Karnataka keep it, and the Datta sampradaya of Narasimha Saraswati and Swami Samarth is its home. The rest of India marks the same full moon only as Margashirsha Purnima.

The dates above are the Maharashtra 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.

दत्त जयंतीच्या हार्दिक शुभेच्छाDatta Jayantichya hardik shubhechha

• Jatadharam Pandurangam (Dattatreya)
• Akhanda Mandalakaram

Datta Jayanti's own date is set by the rule in "The hour" above, and no muhurtham moves it. For a temple visit around it, whose day the family does choose, the finder below applies these rules.

A temple visit, or the first darshan at a new temple. No weekday is ruled out: Tuesday belongs to Murugan and the Amman, Saturday to Perumal and Sani, so the day usually follows the deity rather than the almanac. Ashtami and Chaturdasi are the two tithis held back for darshan, with the standing exceptions of Sivaratri on Krishna Chaturdasi and Kala Bhairava Ashtami, which are kept on those very days. Rahu kaal, Yamaganda and Gulika kaal are not scored here; the panchangam page prints them for the day you pick, and most families simply wait them out.

Find a day for temple visit →