Maha Navami Festival The ninth and last night of Navratri.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Maha Navami
- हिन्दी
- महानवमी
- नेपाली
- महानवमी
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 ninth and last night of Navratri. The kanya pujan or kanjak is done: nine girls, with a boy for Bhairav, are washed at the feet, fed halwa, puri and chana and sent away with a gift, and the nine days' fast is given up after it. In Mysore and Vijayanagara the day carried the royal review of the army and the Ayudha Puja.
- Deity
- Durga, Siddhidatri, Saraswati
- 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 Navami at sunrise; the kanya pujan is in the morning, and the havan closes the nine nights.
The fast
The fast is broken with the kanjak prasad. In the east the Navami bhog is offered to Durga and shared.
Where the regions differ
The north does the kanjak on Ashtami or Navami, by family custom; the south keeps the same day as Saraswati Puja and Ayudha Puja and puts the books and tools away on it. Nepal opens the Taleju Bhawani temple in Kathmandu for the one day of the year it is open to the public, and the tools, the vehicles and the aeroplanes are worshipped.
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.