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
Nepal calendar, computed for Chennai
- Sunday, 5 September 2027
- Thursday, 24 August 2028
- Wednesday, 12 September 2029
Where Rishi Panchami falls on the solar year, and how far the date moves between occurrences.
- 2027: 5 Sep
- 2028: 24 Aug, 11 days earlier
- 2029: 12 Sep, 18 days later
The dates, year by year
Nepal calendar, computed for Chennai
What the day is
The fifth day of the bright fortnight of Bhadra, the last of the three days of Teej. Women bathe before dawn with red mud, cow dung and datiwan twigs in a set order and number of dips, and then worship the sapta rishi, the seven sages, and Arundhati with them, to be free of any fault held to be incurred during menstruation through the year. The fast of Teej is given up after this puja.
- Deity
- Sapta Rishi, Arundhati
- Kind
- Vratam Days kept by a fast or a vow, most of them coming round every lunar month.
Significance
Rishi Panchami is the women's day of purification that closes the three days of Teej. The seven sages and Arundhati, the wife of Vasishtha, are worshipped as the ideal of a household kept in truth, and the bath in the river with the datiwan twigs is held to wash away any fault incurred through the year. Many families today keep the puja and the fast and leave the older rules about menstruation aside, and elders differ on this. What endures is the gathering of women at the river at dawn, mothers and daughters together.
How it is kept
The puja as a household does it, in order. Tick each step as it is done.
Rishi Panchami: how it is kept
Keep ready
- datiwan twigs, often three hundred and sixty-five
- red earth for the bath
- clean red clothes
- images or drawings of the seven sages
- flowers, rice and red tika powder
- fruit
- a lamp and incense
- dakshina for the priest
The steps
0 of 6 done
What is cooked
The fast is broken with food grown without the plough: karkalo, the taro leaf, cooked as a curry, and rice gathered wild or grown by hand. Grain from ploughed fields, salt in strict houses, and anything the ox has worked for are left out of the meal.
The hour
Clock times for Sunday, 5 September 2027 at Chennai
Bhadra Shukla Panchami at sunrise; the bath is before dawn and the puja in the morning.
The main rite. Bhadra Shukla Panchami at sunrise. The bath is taken before dawn and the puja to the seven sages in the morning, after which the Teej fast is broken.
| Instant | Time | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Arunodaya | 04:22 | the 96 minutes before sunrise, the hour of the oil bath |
| Sunrise | 05:58 | the udaya tithi, the tithi running as the sun comes up |
Sunrise 05:58, sunset 18:17, 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 | Shukla Panchami from previous day 12:26 until 11:18 | then Shukla Shashti until next day 10:58 |
| Nakshatra | Swati until 14:30 | then Vishakha until next day 14:59 |
| Rahu kaal | 16:45 to 18:17 (1 h 32 min) | the eighth of the daylight left alone for a beginning |
| Yamaganda | 12:08 to 13:40 (1 h 32 min) | the eighth ruled by Yama, also avoided |
| Gulika | 15:13 to 16:45 (1 h 32 min) | the eighth of Saturn’s son; what is done in it is said to repeat |
| Abhijit | 11:43 to 12:32 (0 h 49 min) | the midday muhurta, good for most things |
| Moonrise | 10:03 | moonset 21:45 |
For Sunday, 5 September 2027 at Chennai. A time marked "previous day" or "next day" is on the clock of that day.
The fast
The fast is kept until the puja and then broken with a meal of untilled food: karkalo, the taro leaf, and rice that has not been grown behind an ox-drawn plough.
What is avoided
No grain grown behind an ox-drawn plough is eaten, and the fast is not broken before the puja. Traditions vary a great deal on how strictly the bath and the food rules are kept.
The name
The same day, in every language that has a word for it
Where the regions differ
Nepal keeps it as the close of Teej; Maharashtra, Gujarat and parts of the Hindi belt keep Rishi Panchami on the same tithi with the same seven sages and a lighter rite. Traditions vary a great deal on how strictly the bath and the food rule are kept, and many families now keep only the puja.
In other regions
- North India
- Parts of the Hindi belt keep the same tithi with the worship of the seven sages and a lighter bath.
- Maharashtra
- Maharashtra keeps Rishi Panchami the day after Ganesh Chaturthi with a meal of hand-grown vegetables, the rishichi bhaji.
- Nepal (the dates above)
- Nepal keeps it as the close of Teej, with the women bathing at the Bagmati at Pashupatinath and at Teku before dawn.
The dates above are the Nepal 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.
Where this day is kept
Nearest first from Chennai, with what is recorded about each.
- Buldhana, Maharashtra
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Rishi Panchami and the Prakat Din in Magha are its days.
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.
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.