Balipratipada · Diwali Padwa Festival The first day of the bright fortnight of Kartik, the day after Lakshmi Pujan, held to be the one day of the year Bali is let up from below to see that his people are well.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Balipratipada · Diwali Padwa
- हिन्दी
- बलि प्रतिपदा
- मराठी
- बलिप्रतिपदा · दिवाळी पाडवा
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 day of the bright fortnight of Kartik, the day after Lakshmi Pujan, held to be the one day of the year Bali is let up from below to see that his people are well. It is one of the saade teen muhurta, the three and a half days of the Marathi year that need no other muhurtham, so shops open the new account books and a new undertaking is begun on it. The wife does an arati for the husband and is given a gift, and the first Diwali after a wedding is kept at the wife's parents' house.
- Deity
- Bali, Vamana, Vishnu, Lakshmi
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
The hour
The rule in words
Kartik shuddha Pratipada at sunrise; the arati and the opening of the books are in the morning.
The fast
No fast. The Diwali faral made through the week before, the chakli, chivda, ladu, karanji and shankarpali, is eaten and given away.
Where the regions differ
Braj and the Hindi belt keep the same tithi as Govardhan Puja and the annakut, and Gujarat begins its Vikram Samvat year on it as Bestu Varas. Traditions vary on whether a household reads the day as Bali's return or as the lifting of the Govardhan hill.
Fixing a day for it
The muhurtham rules that go with this festival
Buying gold or jewellery. Poosam is the star for buying gold, and Akshaya Tritiya (Vaishakha Shukla Thritiyai) and Dhanteras (Krishna Trayodasi before Deepavali) are the two days the whole country buys on, whatever else the day carries. No lagna rule is applied here, so the day is graded as a whole.
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.