Madikeri Dasara Festival The tenth day: Durga killed Mahishasura, Rama killed Ravana, and the Pandavas took their weapons back from the shami tree.

1. Tuesday, 20 October 2026
2. Saturday, 9 October 2027
3. Wednesday, 27 September 2028

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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 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.

Shukla Dashami running at aparahna, the afternoon, is the rule the Deccan, Maharashtra, the north and Nepal follow, because the simollanghana and the burning of the effigies belong to that hour; Kerala, Bengal and Assam keep the Dashami that holds the sunrise and are then a day later. In 2024 the Dashami began at 10:58 on 12 October: Dussehra was the 12th and Bijoya Dashami and the Kerala Vijayadasami the 13th.

Sunrise 06:00, sunset 17:47, 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.

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.

English

Madikeri Dasara

தமிழ்

விஜயதசமி

తెలుగు

విజయదశమి

ಕನ್ನಡ

ಮಡಿಕೇರಿ ದಸರಾ

മലയാളം

വിജയദശമി · വിദ്യാരംഭം

हिन्दी

विजयादशमी · दशहरा

ગુજરાતી

દશેરા

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.

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. Kodagu keeps it at Madikeri, where the karagas of the four Shakti temples have been out through the season and the ten Dashamantapas, tall lit tableaux of the puranas, are pulled through the town on the Dashami night and go on until the next morning. It is the town’s festival rather than the Kodava household’s: the Kodavas name three festivals of their own and this is not one of them.

The dates above are the Kodagu 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.

• Kanaka Durga Temple, Indrakeeladri 384 km
  Vijayawada, NTR district, Andhra Pradesh

  The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Dasara and the Theppotsavam are its days.

• Chamundeshwari Temple, Chamundi Hills 401 km
  Mysuru, Karnataka

  The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Ashada Fridays and Mysuru Dasara are its days

• Danteshwari Temple, Dantewada 657 km
  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.

• Shri Saibaba Samadhi Mandir, Shirdi 967 km
  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 km
  Chamoli, 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.

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.

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.

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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.