Janaki Navami · Sita Navami Festival The birthday of Sita, whom Mithila calls Janaki after her father Janaka, and the one janma the region keeps above every other.

English

Janaki Navami · Sita Navami

मैथिली

जानकीनवमी

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.

1. Friday, 14 May 2027
2. Wednesday, 3 May 2028
3. Tuesday, 22 May 2029

See the whole year on the calendar →

Worked out for Chennai, Lahiri ayanamsa. A date is a function of the place: set yours above and the next three come back for where you are.

The birthday of Sita, whom Mithila calls Janaki after her father Janaka, and the one janma the region keeps above every other. The panchang names it as the day Janaki appeared from the earth, and it is kept at Janakpur, where the marriage and the girlhood are both placed, and at Punaura Dham near Sitamarhi, where the appearance is. Women fast and read the Janaki stuti, and the temples take the palanquin out in the evening. In Mithila it is a daughter's day as much as a goddess's.

Deity

Sita, Rama

Kind

Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.

Vaishakha Shukla Navami at sunrise, exactly a month after Rama Navami in the same bright fortnight count.

Sunrise 05:44, sunset 18:27, 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.

Many women keep a day fast and break it after the evening arati; the meal when it comes is vegetarian, with kheer and the first of the season's mangoes.

Mithila and the Nepal Terai keep it as the great day of the year at Janakpur; the rest of north India keeps it more quietly as Sita Navami, and the Rama temples mark it without a fast.

The dates above are the Mithila 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.

• Janaki Janmasthali Temple, Punaura Dham 1,597 km
  Sitamarhi, Bihar

  The entry for this day names Punaura. The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. The panchang names it as the day Janaki appeared from the earth, and it is kept at Janakpur, where the marriage and the girlhood are both placed, and at Punaura Dham near Sitamarhi, where the appearance is.

• Janaki Mandir, Janakpur 1,628 km
  Dhanusha, Madhesh, Nepal

  The entry for this day names Janakpur, and it is a temple of Sita. The panchang names it as the day Janaki appeared from the earth, and it is kept at Janakpur, where the marriage and the girlhood are both placed, and at Punaura Dham near Sitamarhi, where the appearance is.

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. Your family's own temple comes first, and its calendar is the one that decides.

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.

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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.