Festival Durga, Rama, Saraswati, Aparajita
Dasara · Vijayadashami
The tenth day: Durga killed Mahishasura, Rama killed Ravana, and the Pandavas took their weapons back from the shami tree.
Dasara · Vijayadashami 2027 falls on Saturday, 9 October, computed for Chennai.
Latitude, longitude and time zone 13.08, 80.27
Asia/Kolkata · UTC+5:30
The date of a festival depends on the place.
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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
Maharashtra calendar, computed for Chennai
- Saturday, 9 October 2027
- Wednesday, 27 September 2028
- Tuesday, 16 October 2029
Where Dasara · Vijayadashami falls on the solar year, and how far the date moves between occurrences.
- 2027: 9 Oct
- 2028: 27 Sep, 11 days earlier
- 2029: 16 Oct, 18 days later
Navratri to Dussehra
Part of the same festival, in order, in the Maharashtra calendar
- Sharad Navratri begins …
- Durga Ashtami · Maha Ashtami …
- Maha Navami …
- Dasara · Vijayadashami(this page) …
The dates, year by year
Maharashtra calendar, computed for Chennai
What the day is
The tenth day: Durga killed Mahishasura, Rama killed Ravana, and the Pandavas took their weapons back from the shami tree. Kerala keeps it as Vidyarambham, when a child is made to write the first letters in a tray of rice at the temple; the north burns the effigies of Ravana, Kumbhakarna and Meghnad in the evening; Mysore takes the Jamboo Savari elephant procession through the city.
- Deity
- Durga, Rama, Saraswati, Aparajita
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
Significance
The Pandavas, going into their year in disguise at Virata's court, wrapped their weapons and hung them in a shami tree, and on this day Arjuna took his bow Gandiva back from it to turn back the Kauravas who had come to raid Virata's cattle; that is why the shami, or the apta and banni that stand in for it, is worshipped and its leaves given as gold. The day also marks the end of the rains, and the old kings worshipped Aparajita, the unconquered goddess, and their weapons in the afternoon and crossed the boundary of the kingdom to open the season of campaigns, the seemollanghan every town still re-enacts. The afternoon hour itself is called Vijaya, victory, and anything begun in it is held to succeed, which is why a lesson, a business or a purchase is started on the day without asking for a muhurtham. Rama is said to have worshipped the goddess for nine nights before his battle, so his victory over Ravana and hers over Mahishasura are kept on the same evening. Maharashtra keeps Dasara as one of its three and a half most auspicious days and gives apta leaves as gold because of Kautsa, the student whose guru-dakshina King Raghu raised by having Kubera rain gold on an apta tree. Nagpur also keeps it as Dhamma Chakra Pravartan Din, remembering the Vijayadashami of 1956 when Dr Ambedkar and his followers took the Buddhist refuges at the Deekshabhoomi.
How it is kept
The puja as a household does it, in order. Tick each step as it is done.
Dasara · Vijayadashami: how it is kept
Keep ready
- shami, apta or banni leaves
- rice and kumkum for the lotus
- flowers and a lamp
- marigold garlands for the vehicles and tools
- the Navaratri kalasam or ghat
- a plate of rice for the first letters
- sweets to share
The steps
0 of 8 done
What is cooked
Maharashtra makes shrikhand-puri, puran poli or basundi for the Dasara meal.
The hour
Clock times for Saturday, 9 October 2027 at Chennai
Ashwin shuddha Dashami read over the aparahna, the fourth of the five parts of the day, because the simollanghan belongs to the afternoon; this can put Dasara a day before the udaya Dashami that Bengal keeps.
The main rite. The Dashami running in the afternoon, at aparahna, is the rule for the Aparajita puja, the shami puja and the seemollanghan, and the effigies are burnt at dusk; the southern calendars take the Dashami at sunrise, when the Vidyarambham and the punar puja are done in the morning, so the two can fall a day apart.
| Instant | Time | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Sunrise | 05:59 | the udaya tithi, the tithi running as the sun comes up |
| Aparahna | 13:08 | the afternoon, three fifths of the daylight after sunrise |
Sunrise 05:59, sunset 17:54, 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
| What | When | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Tithi | Shukla Navami from previous day 06:28 until 09:02 | then Shukla Dasami until next day 11:41 |
| Nakshatra | Uttara Ashadha until 10:18 | then Shravana until next day 13:26 |
| Rahu kaal | 08:57 to 10:27 (1 h 29 min) | the eighth of the daylight left alone for a beginning |
| Yamaganda | 13:26 to 14:55 (1 h 29 min) | the eighth ruled by Yama, also avoided |
| Gulika | 05:59 to 07:28 (1 h 29 min) | the eighth of Saturn’s son; what is done in it is said to repeat |
| Abhijit | 11:32 to 12:20 (0 h 48 min) | the midday muhurta, good for most things |
| Moonrise | 13:51 | moonset next day 01:36 |
For Saturday, 9 October 2027 at Chennai. A time marked "previous day" or "next day" is on the clock of that day.
The fast
No fast. Those who kept the nine nights break the fast on this day, and it is the day for starting anything: a lesson, an instrument, a journey.
What is avoided
Do not cut the shami or apta tree for its leaves: pluck a few and leave it standing, since the tree is what is worshipped. Homes that kept the Navaratri puja keep the day free of meat and liquor in the south and the north, though Bengal and Nepal feast with meat once the goddess has gone, and no one puts off a beginning planned for the day, since it needs no muhurtham.
The name
The same day, in every language that has a word for it
Where the regions differ
Kerala's Vidyarambham is the strongest form of the day in the south; the Ramlila grounds of the north, Gujarat's fafda and jalebi after the garba, and Mysore's Dasara are its other faces. Bengal and Odisha keep the Dashami that holds the sunrise and immerse the Durga idols on it, where the north, Gujarat and Maharashtra read the same Dashami at aparahna, so the two halves of the country can be a day apart. Maharashtra keeps it as Dasara, one of the saade teen muhurta: the simollanghan, the crossing of the village boundary at dusk, the apta leaves pulled and given to each other as gold, and the vehicles, the books and the tools worshipped in the morning.
In other regions
- Tamil Nadu
- Tamil Nadu keeps the same day as Vijayadasami, the day of first lessons, and the Kulasekarapatnam Dasara ends on its night.
- Kerala
- Kerala keeps the day as Vidyarambham, with children writing their first letters at home, in the temples, at Thunchan Parambu and in the halls where writers and teachers take them on their laps, and the books of the Pooja Veppu are taken up again.
- Telugu
- Andhra and Telangana keep Dasara with the jammi puja and the jammi leaves given as gold, and Hyderabad follows it with the Alai Balai, a gathering of embraces across party and community.
- Kannada
- Karnataka keeps Mysuru Dasara, closing with the Jamboo Savari, the golden howdah of Chamundeshwari carried by an elephant through the city, and the torchlight parade at Bannimantap; banni leaves are given as gold.
- North India
- The north keeps Dussehra at the Ramlila grounds, where the effigies burn at dusk; Ramnagar in Varanasi closes its month-long Ramlila, Kullu begins its own week of Dussehra with the chariot of Raghunath and the gods of the valley carried down to meet him, and Kota and Delhi hold the largest fairs.
- Maharashtra (the dates above)
- Maharashtra worships the tools, the vehicles and the books in the morning, crosses the boundary at dusk in the seemollanghan, and goes from house to house with apta leaves as gold; gold, vehicles and houses are bought on the day, and lakhs come to the Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur.
- Bengal
- Bengal keeps it as Bijoya Dashami, with the sindoor khela and the bisarjan.
- Assam
- Assam immerses the Durga pratima in the Brahmaputra and visits the elders.
- Nepal
- Nepal keeps it as the tika day of Dashain.
- Tulu Nadu
- Tulu Nadu keeps Dasara on the aparahna Dashami, as the rest of Karnataka does, and the Kudroli pratimas are taken to the water on it.
- Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh
- Bastar keeps a festival of its own that has its Bhitar Raini, the inner chariot pulling, on this night: a seventy five day sequence for Danteshwari Mai, with no Ram and no Ravan in it, kept by the Gond, Maria, Muria, Halba and Bhatra and fixed each year by the Dussehra Samiti at Jagdalpur with the manjhis and chalkis rather than by tithis. It shares a name with the Dussehra of the rest of the country and is not the same festival.
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.
Greeting
What is said to family and friends on the day
सोनं घ्या, सोन्यासारखं राहाSona ghya, sonyasarkha raha
Where this day is kept
Nearest first from Chennai, with what is recorded about each.
- Vijayawada, NTR district, Andhra Pradesh
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Dasara and the Theppotsavam are its days.
- Mysuru, Karnataka
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Ashada Fridays and Mysuru Dasara are its days
- Chhattisgarh
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. A Shakti Peetha in the Bastar forest whose Devi leads the seventy-five-day Bastar Dussehra.
- Ahmednagar, Maharashtra
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Thursday is Baba’s day, and Ram Navami, Guru Purnima and Vijayadashami are its three festivals.
- Sri Badrinath Temple 1,965 kmChamoli, Uttarakhand
The gazetteer line names the day as the edge of this temple’s open season. One of the Char Dham and the last of the 108 Divya Desams, open from Akshaya Tritiya to Vijayadashami.
2 more temples in this gazetteer are recorded for the day. Find temples near you.
Your family's own temple comes first, and its calendar is the one that decides.
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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 as kept for the day; where fewer than three are, the nearest temples of the day's own gods are added under a heading of their own.
Mantras
The prayers said with the day. Each opens with its words and meaning.
Fixing a day for it
The muhurtham rules for a puja held alongside, whose day the family chooses
Dasara · Vijayadashami's own date is set by the rule in "The hour" above, and no muhurtham moves it. For a education around it, whose day the family does choose, the finder below applies these rules.
Vidyarambham or aksharabhyasam, the first letters. Vijayadashami and Vasant Panchami are the classic days and need no further checking. Otherwise Wednesday and Thursday, the days of Budhan and Guru, are the best, Rikta tithis are left out, and the hour is usually the morning.
Every date here is computed from the Sun and Moon for the place entered, by the rule printed beside it.
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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.