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
- Thursday, 30 September 2027
- Tuesday, 19 September 2028
- Monday, 8 October 2029
Where Ghatasthapana · Navratri and Dashain begin falls on the solar year, and how far the date moves between occurrences.
- 2027: 30 Sep
- 2028: 19 Sep, 10 days earlier
- 2029: 8 Oct, 18 days later
Navratri to Dussehra
Part of the same festival, in order, in the Maharashtra calendar
The dates, year by year
Maharashtra calendar, computed for Chennai
What the day is
The first of the nine autumn nights of Durga, the greatest Navratri of the year. The ghatasthapana is done in the morning, barley is sown in the pot, and a night each is given to the nine forms of the goddess; Gujarat dances the garba and the dandiya, Bengal builds the pandals, and the Deccan sets out the Kolu dolls.
- Deity
- Durga, Shakti
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
Significance
Navratri remembers the nine nights in which the goddess, formed from the gathered radiance of all the gods, fought Mahishasura, the buffalo demon whom no god or man could kill, and overcame him on the tenth day. The northern household reads the nine days as the nine forms of the one mother, from Shailaputri, the daughter of the mountain, on the first day to Siddhidatri, the giver of every accomplishment, on the ninth, and in many families the colour, the flower and the bhog change with each. The kalash set on the first morning is her seat for the nine days, and the jau sown in the earth round it is watched closely: thick green shoots are taken as a sign of a good year for the house and the fields. Many homes also keep an akhand jyoti, a ghee lamp that must not go out until the ninth day, and the evenings belong to the Ramlila in the town, which runs on towards the burning of Ravana at Dussehra. The fast falls at the turn of the season, the rains gone and the cold not yet come, and elders say the body is as ready for the discipline then as the house is for its guest. In Maharashtra and in Nepal the first morning is called by its rite, the setting of the ghat: for the Marathi household it opens the Navratra, and for the Nepali household it opens the fifteen days of Bada Dashain, whose jamara is sown that morning in the dashain ghar.
How it is kept
The puja as a household does it, in order. Tick each step as it is done.
Ghatasthapana · Navratri and Dashain begin: how it is kept
Keep ready
- a clay or copper kalash
- a wide clay dish and clean earth or river sand
- jau (barley) to sow
- a coconut with its husk
- a red chunri and mauli thread
- five mango leaves
- Ganga water
- a coin, supari, turmeric, rice and durva for the kalash
- a picture or image of Durga
- a chowki and a red cloth
- a brass lamp, ghee and a long wick for the akhand jyoti
- roli, sindoor, red flowers and the shringar items
- the Durga Saptashati or the Durga Chalisa
The steps
0 of 9 done
What is cooked
Those who fast eat the vrat food of the north: puri and pakoras of kuttu or singhara flour, sabudana khichdi, samak rice, potatoes cooked with sendha namak, makhane ki kheer, fruit and milk. In many families the bhog follows the form of the day, from ghee on the first day and sugar on the second to coconut on the eighth and sesame on the ninth, and the fast closes with halwa, puri and black chana at the kanjak. Bengal feasts rather than fasts, on the khichuri bhog of the pandals from the Shashthi; Gujarat eats its farali food after the garba; the Tamil and Kannada homes make a different sundal each evening for the Kolu visitors.
The hour
Clock times for Thursday, 30 September 2027 at Chennai
Ashwina Shukla Pratipada at sunrise. The ghatasthapana is done in the first third of the day, or in Abhijit muhurtham when Pratipada does not reach it.
The main rite. The ghatasthapana is done on the morning of Ashwin Shukla Pratipada, in the first third of the day, or in the Abhijit muhurta at midday when the Pratipada does not reach the morning, and many almanacs keep it clear of Chitra nakshatra and Vaidhriti yoga. The puja is then done each morning and the arati each evening through to the Navami.
| Instant | Time | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Sunrise | 05:58 | the udaya tithi, the tithi running as the sun comes up |
Sunrise 05:58, sunset 18:00, 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 | Krishna Amavasai from previous day 10:56 until 08:06 | then Shukla Prathamai until next day 05:36 |
| Nakshatra | Hasta until next day 02:12 | then Chitra until 2 days later, 00:50 |
| Rahu kaal | 13:29 to 14:59 (1 h 30 min) | the eighth of the daylight left alone for a beginning |
| Yamaganda | 05:58 to 07:28 (1 h 30 min) | the eighth ruled by Yama, also avoided |
| Gulika | 08:59 to 10:29 (1 h 30 min) | the eighth of Saturn’s son; what is done in it is said to repeat |
| Abhijit | 11:35 to 12:23 (0 h 48 min) | the midday muhurta, good for most things |
| Moonrise | 05:54 | moonset 18:03 |
For Thursday, 30 September 2027 at Chennai. A time marked "previous day" or "next day" is on the clock of that day.
The fast
Many keep all nine days without grain, salt or onion, on kuttu flour, sabudana, fruit and milk; others keep the first and the eighth or ninth. Traditions vary a great deal here.
What is avoided
Grain, ordinary salt, onion, garlic, meat and liquor are kept out of a fasting house for the nine days, sendha namak taking the place of salt. Many do not cut hair or nails or shave through the nine days, and the akhand jyoti is never left unwatched or allowed to go out.
The name
The same day, in every language that has a word for it
Where the regions differ
One festival with four faces: Durga Puja in Bengal, garba in Gujarat, Kolu in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and Ramlila in the Hindi belt, ending at Dussehra. Maharashtra sets the ghat with barley sown over it and hangs a garland above it, adding a strand a day for nine days; Nepal sows the jamara in the dashain ghar the same morning and counts fifteen days of Bada Dashain from it, to the Kojagrat Purnima.
In other regions
- Tamil Nadu
- Tamil Nadu sets out the Kolu, the steps of dolls, and gives the nine nights three each to Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati, with the women visiting each other's Kolu for turmeric, kumkum and sundal.
- Kerala
- Kerala keeps the last three days for Saraswati, with the books laid before her on the Ashtami evening and the Vidyarambham of small children on Vijayadashami.
- Telugu
- Telangana keeps Bathukamma through the same days, the women carrying tall stacks of flowers to the water, and Vijayawada's Kanaka Durga is dressed in a new form each day.
- Kannada
- Karnataka keeps Mysore Dasara, with the palace lit every night, and sets out the gombe, the dolls, at home as the Tamil house does.
- North India
- The Hindi belt keeps the kalash and the jau, the akhand jyoti and the Ramlila in every town, and Vaishno Devi in Jammu and the hill shrines of Himachal, Naina Devi, Chintpurni and Jwalaji, see their largest crowds of the year.
- Maharashtra (the dates above)
- Maharashtra sets the ghat on a bed of earth sown with barley, or with seven kinds of grain in some families, hangs a garland of flowers above it and adds a strand each day, and worships the kuldevi, very often Tulja Bhavani or the Mahalakshmi of Kolhapur, beside it, with a nandadeep burning for the nine days.
- Bengal
- Bengal keeps these days as Devi Paksha, and its Durga Puja proper begins only on the Shashthi with the bodhon, the waking of the goddess.
- Punjab
- The Punjab sows the khetri, the barley in its pot, on the first morning, keeps the naurate with the kanjak on Ashtami, and the men wear the green shoots behind the ear or in the turban on Dussehra.
- Assam
- Assam keeps the Durga Puja of the last four days much as Bengal does, with the pandals of Guwahati and the old rites of the Kamakhya temple.
- Sri Lanka
- The Tamil Hindus of Sri Lanka keep Navarathri in the temples and the schools, whose Vani Vizha on the last days honours Saraswati.
- Nepal
- Nepal sows the jamara, barley with a little maize, in sand and river earth in the dashain ghar, a room kept dark and closed to outsiders, so that the shoots come up long and yellow by the tenth day, when the elders give them with the tika; the calendar committee announces the saait, the hour for the sowing.
- Gujarat
- Gujarat lights the garbo on the first evening and dances the garba in every street and chowk for the nine nights, with the great ones at Ambaji, Pavagadh and the Vadodara and Ahmedabad grounds.
- Tulu Nadu
- Tulu Nadu keeps the nine nights hardest at Kudroli in Mangaluru, where the Mangaluru Dasara runs the whole of them and the Sharada pratimas go to the water at the end.
- Goa · Konkani
- At the Goan devasthans the goddess is set in the makhar, a decorated swing hung in the sabhamandap, and swung through the aarti on each of the nine nights, which is the form the nine nights take in Goa rather than the ghat of Maharashtra or the golu of the Tamil country.
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
शारदीय नवरात्रि की हार्दिक शुभकामनाएंSharadiya Navratri ki hardik shubhkamnayein
Where this day is kept
Nearest first from Chennai, with what is recorded about each.
Temples of Durga and Shakti near you
Not recorded for this day in particular: the nearest temples of the day's own gods, for a reader whose own temple is not listed above.
- Chennai, Tamil Nadu · Adi Kamakshi and Kamakshi, standing on the pancha agni penance
- Chennai, Tamil Nadu · Devi Karumariamman in her three forms
- Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu · Kamakshi Devi seated in padmasana with the Sri Chakra
- Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu · Adhiparasakthi as the swayambhu in the anthill
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.
- Durga Saptashati (Devi Mahatmyam)
- Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu
- Vakratunda Mahakaya
A name without a link is a long reading, read in full from the family’s own copy or at the place of worship; the library prints the shorter prayers.
Fixing a day for it
The muhurtham rules for a puja held alongside, whose day the family chooses
Ghatasthapana · Navratri and Dashain begin'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.
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.