Festival Saraswati, Durga
Saraswati Puja · Ayudha Puja · Sri Panchami
The day of Saraswati, when books, instruments, tools and machines are put away at her feet and not used until she gives them back.
Saraswati Puja · Ayudha Puja · Sri Panchami 2027 falls on Friday, 8 October, 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
- Friday, 8 October 2027
- Tuesday, 26 September 2028
- Monday, 15 October 2029
Where Saraswati Puja · Ayudha Puja · Sri Panchami falls on the solar year, and how far the date moves between occurrences.
- 2027: 8 Oct
- 2028: 26 Sep, 11 days earlier
- 2029: 15 Oct, 18 days later
Navaratri to Vijayadashami
Part of the same festival, in order, in the Tamil Nadu calendar
- Navaratri begins …
- Durgashtami …
- Saraswati Puja · Ayudha Puja · Sri Panchami(this page) …
- Vijayadasami …
The dates, year by year
Tamil Nadu calendar, computed for Chennai
What the day is
The day of Saraswati, when books, instruments, tools and machines are put away at her feet and not used until she gives them back. In the south it is the ninth day of Navaratri, and the Ayudha Puja is the same rite turned on the workshop and the vehicle: the lathe, the loom, the lorry and the kitchen knife are washed, marked with sandal and kumkum, garlanded and left alone. Bengal and Assam keep the same name four months earlier, on Sri Panchami in Magh, when a pratima in white or yellow is set up in every school and every para and the hatekhori, a child's first letters, is done in front of her.
- Deity
- Saraswati, Durga
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
Significance
The nine nights of Navaratri are kept in three sets of three, for Durga, then Lakshmi, then Saraswati, so the Navami that closes them is hers, and the Tamil home keeps it before the kolu, the steps of dolls that have stood in the front room all nine nights. Laying down the books and the tools is not a holiday from learning but an offering of it: what a person knows and what the hands can make are put in her keeping for a day, to be taken back blessed. Ayudha Puja is the older half of the rite, the worship of weapons that kings held before the season of campaigns, which the Tamil street has turned into the worship of every instrument of a living, from the barber's scissors to the town bus. Koothanur near Mayiladuthurai, the best known Saraswati temple in Tamil Nadu, draws its largest crowd of students on this day.
How it is kept
The puja as a household does it, in order. Tick each step as it is done.
Saraswati Puja · Ayudha Puja · Sri Panchami: how it is kept
Keep ready
- the books, instruments, account books and tools of the house
- a picture of Saraswati
- a clean white or silk cloth
- sandal paste, kumkum and turmeric
- white flowers: jasmine, lotus
- banana stems and mango leaves
- an ash gourd (poosanikkai)
- lemons for the wheels
- pori, pottukadalai, aval and jaggery
- sundal, fruit and coconut
- kuthuvilakku and camphor
- thamboolam for the visitors
The steps
0 of 10 done
What is cooked
Tamil Nadu offers sundal, sakkarai pongal, vadai, payasam and the Ayudha Puja mix of pori, pottukadalai, aval and jaggery, which is handed out at every shop and workshop. Kerala keeps the kitchen simple while the books lie in the pooja room and makes payasam for the Vijayadashami; Bengal, on Sri Panchami, offers kul, the first jujube of the season, with sweet potato and khichuri, labra and begun bhaja, and many West Bengal homes cook gota sheddho that night to be eaten cold the next day.
The hour
Clock times for Friday, 8 October 2027 at Chennai
Shukla Navami running at aparahna, the afternoon on which the books and the tools are laid down; they are taken back on Vijayadasami morning. In 2024 the Navami began at 12:07 on 11 October and the Tamil Nadu holiday list kept Ayudha Poojai on the 11th. The Bengali and Assamese panjikas read the Magh Shukla Panchami at purvahna, the forenoon, because the pushpanjali is offered then.
The main rite. The Shukla Navami of Navaratri, taken at sunrise: the books and the tools are laid down the evening before, worshipped through the Navami, and taken up again on the Vijayadasami morning. Bengal and Assam keep their Saraswati Puja on the Magh Shukla Panchami instead, with the pushpanjali in the forenoon.
| Instant | Time | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Purvahna | 09:33 | the forenoon, three tenths of the daylight after sunrise |
| Aparahna | 13:08 | the afternoon, three fifths of the daylight after sunrise |
Sunrise 05:59, sunset 17:54, 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 Ashtami until 06:28 | then Shukla Navami until next day 09:02 |
| Nakshatra | Purva Ashadha until 07:14 | then Uttara Ashadha until next day 10:18 |
| Rahu kaal | 10:27 to 11:57 (1 h 29 min) | the eighth of the daylight left alone for a beginning |
| Yamaganda | 14:55 to 16:25 (1 h 29 min) | the eighth ruled by Yama, also avoided |
| Gulika | 07:28 to 08:58 (1 h 29 min) | the eighth of Saturn’s son; what is done in it is said to repeat |
| Abhijit | 11:33 to 12:20 (0 h 48 min) | the midday muhurta, good for most things |
| Moonrise | 13:09 | moonset next day 00:47 |
For Friday, 8 October 2027 at Chennai. A time marked "previous day" or "next day" is on the clock of that day.
The fast
No fast is prescribed; many families eat one meal and keep the kitchen light. Sundal, vadai and payasam are offered through the nine nights in the south, and Bengal offers kul, the first jujube of the season, which nobody eats before this day.
What is avoided
Nobody reads, writes, plays an instrument or works a tool that has been set before the goddess until it is taken up again on Vijayadasami. Vehicles are not driven before their puja, and the pieces of the ash gourd are swept off the road so that nobody slips.
The name
The same day, in every language that has a word for it
Where the regions differ
Tamil Nadu and Kerala put Saraswati Puja on Navami and start again on Dasami; Bengal and Assam keep it on Sri Panchami in Magh instead, and the north keeps the same Magh Panchami as Vasant Panchami and the Navami as Maha Navami with the Durga puja. One name and two days four months apart, and the calendar prints whichever its tradition keeps.
In other regions
- Tamil Nadu (the dates above)
- Tamil Nadu keeps Saraswati Puja and Ayudha Puja on the same Navami, the second so widely that lorries, autos and buses go out garlanded and schools, shops and offices close for it.
- Kerala
- Kerala lays the books down at the Pooja Veppu on the Durgashtami evening, keeps them untouched through the Navami, and takes them up at the Pooja Eduppu on Vijayadashami; the Dakshina Mookambika temple at Panachikkad is its centre.
- Telugu
- Andhra and Telangana worship Saraswati on the Moola nakshatra day of the Navaratri, when children sit before her with their books, and keep the Ayudha Puja of tools and vehicles on the Navami.
- Kannada
- Karnataka invites Saraswati on the Moola nakshatra and keeps Ayudha Puja on the Mahanavami, when the Mysuru palace worships the royal weapons, the elephants and the state carriages.
- North India
- The north keeps the Navami as Maha Navami, with the kanya puja and the havan that close the Navratri, and worships Saraswati in yellow on Vasant Panchami in Magh.
- Maharashtra
- Maharashtra invites Saraswati on the Moola nakshatra and worships the books then; the Navami is Khande Navami, when the tools and the weapons of the house are worshipped.
- Bengal
- Bengal keeps Saraswati Puja on Sri Panchami in Magh: a white pratima is set up in every school, club and home, the children offer the pushpanjali in yellow, the little ones have their hatekhori, and nobody touches a book until the next day.
- Punjab
- Punjab keeps the Magh Panchami as Basant, a day of yellow clothes and kites rather than of a Saraswati puja.
- Assam
- Assam keeps Saraswati Puja on the same Magh Panchami, above all in the schools and colleges, which the students decorate and run themselves.
- Sri Lanka
- Sri Lankan Tamil schools and temples keep the Navaratri as Vani Vizha, the festival of Saraswati, with the books and instruments worshipped on its last day.
- Nepal
- Nepal worships Saraswati on Shree Panchami at the shrine on Swayambhu hill, where children are started on their letters, and worships its tools and vehicles on the Maha Navami.
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 சரஸ்வதி பூஜை, ஆயுத பூஜை நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்Iniya Saraswati Pooja, Ayudha Pooja nalvazhthukkal
Where this day is kept
Nearest first from Chennai, with what is recorded about each.
Temples of Durga near you
Not recorded for this day in particular: the nearest temples of the day's own gods, for a reader whose own temple is not listed above.
- Chennai, Tamil Nadu · Adi Kamakshi and Kamakshi, standing on the pancha agni penance
- Chennai, Tamil Nadu · Devi Karumariamman in her three forms
- Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu · Kamakshi Devi seated in padmasana with the Sri Chakra
- Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu · Adhiparasakthi as the swayambhu in the anthill
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
Saraswati Puja · Ayudha Puja · Sri Panchami's own date is set by the rule in "The hour" above, and no muhurtham moves it. For a education around it, whose day the family does choose, the finder below applies these rules.
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.
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.