Dhanteras · Dhanvantari Jayanti Festival The thirteenth day of the dark fortnight of Kartika, the first day of the Diwali days.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Dhanteras · Dhanvantari Jayanti
- हिन्दी
- धनतेरस · धन्वंतरि जयंती
- मराठी
- धनत्रयोदशी · धनतेरस
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 thirteenth day of the dark fortnight of Kartika, the first day of the Diwali days. Dhanvantari, the physician of the gods, rose from the churning of the ocean with the pot of amrit on it, so it is the doctors' and the ayurveda day; households buy metal, a vessel, a coin or gold, and light the yama deepam, a lamp set facing south at the door for Yama.
- Deity
- Dhanvantari, Lakshmi, Kubera, Yama
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
The hour
The rule in words
The Trayodashi running at pradosha, the two hours and twenty-four minutes after sunset, because the lamp and the purchase belong to that evening.
The fast
No fast is required. The new vessel is filled and used, and the lamp is left burning through the night.
Where the regions differ
Buying gold or silver on Dhanteras is kept across the north and west and has spread to the whole country; the south keeps the Deepavali oil bath the next morning and does not make Dhanteras a buying day in the same way.
Fixing a day for it
The muhurtham rules that go with this festival
Buying gold or jewellery. Poosam is the star for buying gold, and Akshaya Tritiya (Vaishakha Shukla Thritiyai) and Dhanteras (Krishna Trayodasi before Deepavali) are the two days the whole country buys on, whatever else the day carries. No lagna rule is applied here, so the day is graded as a whole.
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.