Vijaya Dashami · Dashain tika Festival The tenth day: Durga killed Mahishasura, Rama killed Ravana, and the Pandavas took their weapons back from the shami tree.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Vijaya Dashami · Dashain tika
- नेपाली
- विजया दशमी · दशैँ टीका
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 tenth day: Durga killed Mahishasura, Rama killed Ravana, and the Pandavas took their weapons back from the shami tree. Kerala keeps it as Vidyarambham, when a child is made to write the first letters in a tray of rice at the temple; the north burns the effigies of Ravana, Kumbhakarna and Meghnad in the evening; Mysore takes the Jamboo Savari elephant procession through the city.
- Deity
- Durga, Rama, Saraswati, Aparajita
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
The hour
The rule in words
Shukla Dashami running at aparahna, the afternoon, is the rule the Deccan, Maharashtra, the north and Nepal follow, because the simollanghana and the burning of the effigies belong to that hour; Kerala, Bengal and Assam keep the Dashami that holds the sunrise and are then a day later. In 2024 the Dashami began at 10:58 on 12 October: Dussehra was the 12th and Bijoya Dashami and the Kerala Vijayadasami the 13th.
The fast
No fast. Those who kept the nine nights break the fast on this day, and it is the day for starting anything: a lesson, an instrument, a journey.
Where the regions differ
Kerala's Vidyarambham is the strongest form of the day in the south; the Ramlila grounds of the north and Mysore's Dasara are its other faces. Bengal keeps the same day as Bijoya Dashami and immerses the Durga idols. Nepal keeps it as the tika day of Dashain: the elders press a tika of curd, rice and sindur on the forehead of the young and give them jamara from the dashain ghar, and the visiting runs on for five days. Assam keeps it as the day of the bisarjan in the Brahmaputra.
Fixing a day for it
The muhurtham rules that go with this festival
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. 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.