Festival Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati
Navaratri begins
The first of the nine nights of the goddess in Ashwayuja, kept in the south as the Kolu or Bommai Golu: a stepped stand of an odd number of tiers is set up and filled with dolls, and women and children are invited every evening, given sundal, kumkum, betel and a small gift, and sung to.
Navaratri begins 2027 falls on Thursday, 30 September, computed for Chennai.
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
Tamil Nadu calendar, computed for Chennai
- Thursday, 30 September 2027
- Tuesday, 19 September 2028
- Monday, 8 October 2029
Where Navaratri begins 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
Navaratri to Vijayadashami
Part of the same festival, in order, in the Tamil Nadu calendar
- Navaratri begins(this page) …
- Durgashtami …
- Saraswati Puja · Ayudha Puja · Sri Panchami …
- Vijayadasami …
The dates, year by year
Tamil Nadu calendar, computed for Chennai
What the day is
The first of the nine nights of the goddess in Ashwayuja, kept in the south as the Kolu or Bommai Golu: a stepped stand of an odd number of tiers is set up and filled with dolls, and women and children are invited every evening, given sundal, kumkum, betel and a small gift, and sung to. Three nights each are given to Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati.
- Deity
- Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
Significance
The kolu is said in one telling to show the goddess's battle, the gods having poured all their powers into her and standing still like dolls while she fought, and in another to be a ladder of creation, from the everyday world on the lowest step to the gods at the top. At its head stands the marapachi pair, the wooden bride and groom a Tamil mother gives her daughter at marriage, which are passed down and set out every year, and Karnataka keeps the same custom with its pattada gombe. Every year something is added, a new doll or a whole new scene, so the kolu is a family's record of its years as much as a shrine. The nine evenings belong to the women: they go from house to house, sing, are given thamboolam and are honoured as forms of the goddess, and the girls learn the family's songs and kolams this way.
How it is kept
The puja as a household does it, in order. Tick each step as it is done.
Navaratri begins: how it is kept
Keep ready
- the padi, the steps, with a white or silk cloth
- the dolls, with the marapachi pair
- a brass kalasam, mango leaves and a coconut
- kuthuvilakku and oil or ghee
- kolam powder
- flowers
- nine kinds of pulses for the sundal
- betel leaves, areca nut, turmeric and kumkum for the thamboolam
- small gifts: blouse pieces, bangles, combs or mirrors
- a book of the Lalita Sahasranama
The steps
0 of 9 done
What is cooked
Tamil Nadu makes a different sundal each evening, of chickpea, green gram, black-eyed peas, groundnut, field beans, rajma, Bengal gram, peas and sweet corn in one common order, with sakkarai pongal, payasam or puttu on the Fridays. Karnataka offers kosambari, chitranna and holige; Andhra offers at the temples the dish of each day's alankaram, pulihora, daddojanam, chakkera pongali and garelu; Telangana cooks the saddi, the mixed rices, for Bathukamma.
The hour
Clock times for Thursday, 30 September 2027 at Chennai
Ashwayuja Shukla Prathamai at sunrise; the kalasam is installed and the Kolu set up that morning, and the evening visits run for nine days.
The main rite. Ashvina Shukla Prathamai at sunrise: the kalasam is invoked and the kolu set up that morning, or on the Mahalaya Amavasya before in some families, and the puja and the visits are at dusk on each of the nine evenings.
| 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 the nine days without onion, garlic or non-vegetarian food; some keep one meal a day. A different sundal, made of a different pulse, is offered each evening.
What is avoided
Many keep the nine days without onion, garlic, meat or eggs, and no woman leaves the kolu without thamboolam, since she comes as the goddess. A broken doll is not put on the steps, and the kolu is not taken down before Vijayadasami.
The name
The same day, in every language that has a word for it
Where the regions differ
The Kolu in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka; the garba and dandiya in Gujarat; Durga Puja in Bengal; the Bathukamma flower stacks in Telangana; and Ramlila in the Hindi belt. One festival, five quite different shapes.
In other regions
- Tamil Nadu (the dates above)
- Tamil Nadu keeps the Bommai Kolu in every home that has the dolls, from the three-step kolu of a flat to the rooms of steps in the old houses of Mylapore; Kanchipuram clay, Thanjavur's bobbing-headed thalaiyatti bommai and Kondapalli wood are what the kolu shops sell.
- Kerala
- Kerala keeps the nine nights in the temples and with the book puja at their end rather than with a kolu, which is kept mostly in the Tamil agraharams of Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram; the Saraswati of Padmanabhapuram is carried in procession to Thiruvananthapuram for the music of the Navaratri Mandapam, where the kritis of Swathi Thirunal are sung.
- Telugu
- Telangana keeps the nine days as Bathukamma, the women stacking seasonal flowers into cones and singing round them before setting them afloat, and Andhra dresses the Kanaka Durga of Vijayawada in a different alankaram each day; the bommala koluvu is set up in many Andhra homes as in Tamil ones.
- Kannada
- Karnataka keeps the Gombe Habba with the pattada gombe at its head, and Mysuru keeps its Dasara from this day, the palace lit each night and the royal family's private durbar held within it.
- North India
- The north keeps the same day as Sharad Navratri, with the ghatasthapana, the barley sown in the pot, the fast, the garba of Gujarat and the Ramlila.
- Maharashtra
- Maharashtra sets up the ghat with grains sown round it and keeps a nandadeep burning nine days, its girls dance the bhondla or hadga, and the pilgrims go to Tuljapur, Kolhapur and Mahur.
- Bengal
- Bengal counts the Devi Paksha from Mahalaya and keeps Durga Puja on its last five days, from Shashthi to Dashami.
- Assam
- Assam, like Bengal, keeps Durga Puja on the last days of the nine nights.
- Sri Lanka
- Sri Lankan Tamils keep the nine nights in the kovils and the schools, many fasting on one meal a day, and close them with the Vani Vizha for Saraswati.
- Nepal
- Nepal begins Bada Dashain on the same day with the ghatasthapana and the jamara sown in the dashain ghar.
- Kodagu
- In Madikeri the karagas of the four Shakti temples of the town go out through the nine nights, and the wards build the ten Dashamantapas across them for the Dashami night that closes them.
The dates above are the Tamil Nadu 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
இனிய நவராத்திரி நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்Iniya Navaratri nalvazhthukkal
Where this day is kept
Nearest first from Chennai, with what is recorded about each.
- Chennai, Tamil Nadu
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Fridays, Varalakshmi Vratam and Navaratri are its days.
- Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Navaratri and Fridays are its days
- Thirumalaikodi, Vellore, Tamil Nadu
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Fridays and Navaratri are its days
- Thiruvarur, Tamil Nadu
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Navaratri is its season.
- Jogulamba Temple, Alampur 387 kmJogulamba Gadwal, Telangana
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Navaratri and Maha Sivaratri are its seasons.
- Palnadu, Andhra Pradesh
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Maha Sivaratri and Navaratri are its days
48 more temples in this gazetteer are recorded for the day. Find temples near you.
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.
Fixing a day for it
The muhurtham rules for a puja held alongside, whose day the family chooses
Navaratri begins'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.