Ghatasthapana · Navratri and Dashain begin Festival The first of the nine autumn nights of Durga, the greatest Navratri of the year.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Ghatasthapana · Navratri and Dashain begin
- मराठी
- घटस्थापना · नवरात्र आरंभ
- नेपाली
- घटस्थापना · दसैँ आरम्भ
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 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.
The hour
The rule in words
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 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.
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.
Fixing a day for it
The muhurtham rules that go with this festival
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. 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.