Durga Puja begins · Maha Shashthi Festival The sixth day of the bright fortnight of Ashwin, the first day of Durga Puja, when the goddess is called awake.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Durga Puja begins · Maha Shashthi
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 sixth day of the bright fortnight of Ashwin, the first day of Durga Puja, when the goddess is called awake. The bodhon is done under a bel tree, the amantran invites her and the adhibas prepares her seat; in the evening the cloth is lifted from the face of the pratima, the dhak begins and the pandals open to the crowd. Bengal counts the puja as four days and this is the first of them.
- Deity
- Durga, Ganesha, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kartikeya
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
The hour
The rule in words
Ashwin Shukla Shashthi at sunrise; the bodhon is at dusk under the bel tree, and the unveiling of the face follows it.
The fast
No fast is prescribed on the Shashthi. Many keep the four days without fish or meat, and some take one meal a day until the anjali of each morning.
Where the regions differ
Bengal, Assam, Odisha and Tripura count Durga Puja from the Shashthi; the north and the Deccan count nine nights from the Pratipada, so what is the eighth night there is the third day here. The autumn puja is the akal bodhan, the untimely waking, which is why the goddess has to be called awake at all. Assam keeps the same Shashthi as the opening of Durga Puja, with the bodhon in the namghar and the sarbajanin pandals of Guwahati, and the bisarjan four days later in the Brahmaputra.
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.