Gauri Pujan Festival The three days on which the Gauri, taken as Mahalakshmi and as Parvati come home to her mother, are received in a Marathi house in the middle of the Ganpati fortnight.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Gauri Pujan
- हिन्दी
- गौरी पूजन
- मराठी
- गौरी पूजन
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 three days on which the Gauri, taken as Mahalakshmi and as Parvati come home to her mother, are received in a Marathi house in the middle of the Ganpati fortnight. Two masks or metal faces are dressed in a sari and the household ornaments and set up beside the Ganpati; they are brought in on Anuradha nakshatra, fed a full meal on Jyeshtha and sent home on Moola. The married women of the street are called in on the middle day and given haldi kunku.
- Deity
- Gauri, Mahalakshmi, Parvati
- 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 day Jyeshtha nakshatra runs at sunrise in Bhadrapad shuddha, the middle of the three days; the naivedya is offered at midday and the haldi kunku in the evening.
The fast
No fast is kept. The middle day carries the largest meal of the fortnight: puran poli, sixteen kinds of vegetable and the bhaji of the season.
Where the regions differ
The three Gauri days follow the nakshatra wheel and not the tithis, so they slide against Ganesh Chaturthi from year to year. Karnataka keeps Gauri Habba the day before Ganesh Chaturthi and the Telugu country keeps Gowri Vratam on the same instinct; traditions vary from house to house on the number of faces and on the day of the visarjan. The middle day is the Gauri Pujan, when the sixteen vegetables and the puran poli are offered and the women of the street are called in.
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.