Why Deepavali falls on different days north and south

They are not disagreeing about the date of one festival. They are keeping two different observances that fall next to each other.

Tamil Nadu keeps Naraka Chaturdasi: the Ashvina Krishna Chaturdasi, read at arunodaya, the 96 minutes before sunrise, because the observance is the oil bath at dawn. The north keeps Lakshmi Puja on the Amavasai that follows, read at pradosha, the evening after sunset, because the observance is the lamps and the puja at night.

The Chaturdasi and the Amavasai are consecutive tithis. Read one at dawn and the next at dusk, and most years you get two different civil days. Nothing has gone wrong, and no calendar needs correcting.

For a Tamil household Deepavali is the Ganga snanam, the oil bath before sunrise. The tradition holds that at that hour Ganga is present in all water and Lakshmi in the sesame oil, which is why elders ask one another on the morning whether the bath has been taken. The new clothes, the sweets and the crackers are laid before the gods the night before and taken up only after the bath, so that the first things of the day are received as a gift.

The rule follows the observance exactly. The Tamil list takes the Ashvina Krishna Chaturdasi running at arunodaya, and at sunrise when no dawn carries it. Because the bath is before sunrise, the tithi is read before sunrise. That usually puts Tamil Deepavali on the day before the Amavasai.

Andhra and Telangana keep the same morning as the first day of Deepavali, with the oil bath, crackers before dawn and Satyabhama honoured beside Krishna. Karnataka keeps it after Neeru Tumbuva Habba, with the enne snana at dawn.

In the north the day is the Lakshmi and Ganesha puja at the pradosha hour, the traders’ new account books blessed, and lamps and fireworks through the night. The rule reads the Amavasai running at pradosha, which is why Diwali there can fall on the day before the Amavasai that holds the sunrise.

That same evening carries other names elsewhere. Bengal keeps the new moon as Kali Puja, worshipping Kali through the night, Lakshmi’s own puja having been kept at the Kojagari full moon. The Punjab keeps it as Diwali and, at the Golden Temple, as Bandi Chhor Divas. Maharashtra keeps Lakshmi Pujan, with the cash boxes and account books worshipped. Nepal keeps it as Laxmi Puja, the third day of Tihar.

The south keeps that evening too and calls it something else. In Tamil homes it is the Deepavali Amavasai: the Kedara Gowri nonbu, and a quieter Lakshmi and Kubera puja after the oil bath of the morning before. The Gujarati and Marwari traders of Chennai open their new account books at that Lakshmi puja, while many Tamil traders open their puthu kanakku in Chithirai instead.

The north keeps the Chaturdasi morning as well, under the names Chhoti Diwali and Roop Chaudas, with the dawn bath and the Yama lamp in the evening. Maharashtra keeps the abhyanga snan at dawn and crushes the karit underfoot for Narakasura. Karnataka runs from the Chaturdashi oil bath through the Lakshmi puja of the Amavasya to Bali Padyami.

So what actually differs between regions is which of the two days carries the name Deepavali, and which of the two observances the household treats as the festival itself. The days kept are much the same. Calling it one festival on two dates is what makes it look like an error.

A tithi can cover two sunrises or none, and it runs between about twenty and twenty-seven hours. So the Chaturdasi at dawn and the Amavasai at dusk do not always fall on separate civil days.

In some years the Amavasai has already begun by the evening of the day whose dawn held the Chaturdasi, and then the oil bath and the lamps belong to one day. The Telugu list describes it plainly: the Lakshmi puja follows on the evening of the Amavasya, which in some years is this same evening.

That is also why the answer cannot be given once and remembered. It has to be computed for the year, and for the place, because both instants are counted from a local sunrise and a local sunset.

The Tamil calendar here carries both entries rather than choosing between them. Deepavali is dated by the Chaturdasi at arunodaya. Deepavali Amavasai, with Lakshmi Puja named beside it, is dated by the Amavasai at pradosha. Each carries the sentence that produced its date, and each carries regional notes saying what Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, north Indian, Maharashtrian, Bengali, Punjabi and Nepali households keep on it.

If your family and your in-laws’ family are on different days, the two entries will usually show you exactly why within a line or two.

What a family then has to settle is not which calendar is right but which observance to keep. The hour of a rite is local by every tradition: an oil bath before sunrise means before the sunrise outside your own window. The day a festival falls on is usually kept with the household you are keeping it with.

What each festival means and when its puja hour falls.

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