Upcoming Hindu Festivals

Two observances share the fourteenth tithi of Bhadrapada's bright fortnight. It closes the ten days of Ganesh Chaturthi with visarjan, the murti returned to water; and it is the vrat of Ananta — Vishnu in his endless form, resting on Shesha — which the Mahabharata has Krishna prescribe to Yudhishthira during the exile, as the thing to do when a stretch of life cannot be shortened and must simply be got through. Fourteen is the number the day turns on: fourteen knots, fourteen years of the vrat, the fourteen lokas. In the Jain reckoning the same day closes Paryushana as Kshamavani, the day of asking forgiveness.

Ananta Vishnu is worshipped in the forenoon, with a kalash and an image of Shesha wound from durva and kusha grass. A cotton thread of fourteen knots, dyed in haldi, is offered and then tied — the right arm for men, the left for women — and worn until it is replaced next year. Fourteen puris and fourteen sweet cakes are offered and shared out. Where the ten-day Ganesh utsav has been kept, the same afternoon is the visarjan procession, the murti carried to water with Ganpati Bappa Morya, pudhchya varshi lavkar ya — come back soon next year.

Pitru Paksha is the fortnight the tradition gives back to the dead — sixteen days from the tithi after Bhadrapada Purnima to the Ashwina Amavasya that closes it. The almanac marks the opening on Ashwina Krishna Pratipada; the Purnima immediately before it carries its own Purnima Shraddha, which is why the period is often described as beginning a day earlier than the calendar prints it. Each ancestor's rites are performed on the tithi corresponding to the day they died, so within the fortnight a household's own dates matter more than the fortnight's. The classical view is that the pitrs are near during these days and that what is offered reaches them, which is why the tone is obligation and remembrance rather than mourning. The last day, Sarva Pitru Amavasya, gathers everyone left out — it has its own entry here. Note that this hub marks the start date only; the observance runs the full fortnight.

Tarpan with water, black sesame and kusha grass is offered facing south, in the aparahna hours — the kutup muhurat around midday is the classical window — on the tithi belonging to each ancestor. Pind daan of rice follows where the family keeps it. Portions are set aside for the crow, the cow, the dog and the fire before the household eats, and a brahmana or a guest is fed and given cloth. Through the fortnight the customary restraint holds: no marriage, no griha pravesh, no new vehicle or major purchase, no new venture begun. Onion, garlic and non-vegetarian food are set aside; hair and nails are left uncut. None of this is mourning — it is a debt being paid on time.

The amavasya that closes the fortnight of Pitru Paksha. Shraddha through that fortnight is normally offered on the tithi an ancestor died; this last day gathers all of them at once, which is why it is called Sarva Pitru — and why it is the day that covers anyone whose date was never written down, who died away from home, or whose rites were never completed. In Bengal the same dawn is Mahalaya, when the Devi is invoked and the count to Durga Puja begins, so the fortnight given to the dead hands straight over to the fortnight given to the Goddess. The tone is obligation quietly discharged rather than mourning.

Tarpan is offered with water, black sesame and kusha grass, facing south, in the aparahna hours — the kutup muhurat around midday is the classical window. Pind daan of rice follows. Portions are set aside for the crow, the cow, the dog and the fire before anyone in the house eats, and a brahmana or a guest is fed and given cloth. Speak the names aloud if you know them. The fortnight's restraint — no new purchases, no auspicious beginnings — ends with this day.

Sharad Navratri begins on the first tithi of Ashwina's bright fortnight and runs nine nights, each given to one of the nine forms of Durga, closing at Dussehra on the tenth. This is the autumn Navratri, the most widely kept of the four in the year. Classically it is a stretch of discipline as much as of celebration — the fast, the daily paath and the restraint on food and diversion are the frame, and the garba and dandiya of the evenings sit inside that frame rather than replace it.

Ghatasthapana on the first morning, within the prescribed pratipada window, sets a clay pot with sown barley that is watered daily. Many keep the full nine-day fast on kuttu or singhara flour, sendha namak, fruit and milk, avoiding grains, onion and garlic. The Durga Saptashati or the Durga Chalisa is read each day. Kanya pujan on Ashtami or Navami, feeding and honouring young girls, closes the vrat.

Vijayadashami falls on the tenth tithi of Ashwina's bright fortnight, after the nine nights. It carries two stories at once — Rama's victory over Ravana in the north, Durga's over Mahishasura in the east — and both are read as the same thing: a long contest finally finishing. The day is one of the three and a half abujha muhurats of the year, auspicious throughout without needing a calculated window, which is why so much is traditionally begun on it.

The observance window is aparahna, the late afternoon, when the Ravana effigies burn and Shami puja and Aparajita puja are performed. Tools, books, vehicles and instruments are honoured in the ayudha puja, and children are traditionally started on their letters. Beginning a journey, a business or any new undertaking today needs no further muhurat check. Exchanging apta leaves as symbolic gold is the Maharashtrian custom.

The Ashwina full moon is the one night of the year the classical texts say the Moon shows all sixteen of its kalas, with the monsoon just cleared and the air at its most transparent. It is also Kojagari Purnima — ko jagarti, who is awake — the night Lakshmi is said to move about and to give to whoever she finds still up, which is why the vigil rather than the puja is the substance of it. In Braj the same night holds the Maharaas of Krishna and the gopis. Because the day is fixed by the Purnima prevailing at moonrise and through the night, it can fall a day before the Purnima the almanac marks for the morning snan-daan; both entries are correct, for different windows.

Kheer is cooked and set out under the open sky through the night in a silver or clay vessel, and eaten as prasad at dawn — the tradition holds the night's rays to be medicinal, and ayurveda uses the practice for respiratory and pitta complaints. Lakshmi is worshipped at moonrise, lamps left burning, and the night passed in jagran with bhajan, dice and conversation rather than sleep. Many keep a fast through the day and break it with the kheer.

Karva Chauth falls on the fourth tithi of the waning fortnight of Kartika in the purnimanta reckoning, four days after the full moon. Married women keep a day-long fast for the long life of their husbands and break it only after sighting the moon — which is why the date is set by moonrise rather than sunrise, and why the timing shifts from city to city. The Punjabi and western-UP custom is the best known, with the katha of Veeravati and the sargi at its centre.

The fast begins before dawn with sargi, food sent by the mother-in-law, and strict observers keep it nirjala through the day. In the evening women gather, hear the Karva Chauth katha and pass the karva — the clay pot — in the customary circle. After moonrise the moon is viewed through a sieve, arghya is offered, the husband's face is seen, and he gives the first sip of water.

Dhanteras opens the five days of Diwali on the thirteenth tithi of Kartika's waning fortnight. It is Dhanvantari Jayanti — the physician of the gods rose from the churning of the ocean on this tithi carrying the pot of amrita — so the day belongs as much to health as to wealth, and Ayurveda keeps it as its own. The dhan of the name is Dhanvantari before it is money, though the mercantile reading has long since become the popular one. Because the day is fixed at pradosh rather than at sunrise, the almanac will sometimes place it on a morning that still belongs to the previous tithi; that is the rule working correctly, not a slip.

Buying metal is the day's best-known custom — gold or silver if the household can, otherwise brass, steel or simply a new vessel, which is the older and entirely sufficient form. Lakshmi and Kubera are worshipped together in the pradosh window at dusk, with Dhanvantari invoked for the health of the house. Thirteen diyas are lit, and one is set outside the door facing south after nightfall as the yama deepam, offered to Yama for protection against untimely death — the one lamp in the year that is deliberately turned away from the house. Clean and light the threshold; the rest of the sequence follows from here.

Diwali falls on the Kartika Amavasya — the darkest night of the month in the purnimanta reckoning, which the amanta calendar names Ashwina Amavasya. Same night, two names. The north remembers Rama's return to Ayodhya, the west Krishna's defeat of Narakasura, and Lakshmi is welcomed everywhere at dusk. That the festival of lights is set on the year's darkest night is the whole point of it: the lamps mean more against that background than they would against any other.

Lakshmi Puja is performed in the pradosh window at dusk, with a sthir lagna preferred where the almanac offers one. Clean the house first — the classical instruction is that Lakshmi enters where things are in order. Offer lotus, kamal gatta, batasha and kheel, and light diyas at the threshold, at the tulsi and at every doorway, leaving one to burn through the night. Account books are opened afresh.

The fourteenth tithi of Kartika's dark fortnight, the day before Amavasya, remembers Krishna and Satyabhama killing Narakasura and releasing the sixteen thousand he held. Because the day is fixed by the Chaturdashi prevailing before dawn rather than at sunrise, it lands on the same Gregorian date as Diwali in some years and the day before in others — the almanac working correctly, not a contradiction, and worth saying plainly because the two readings both circulate. It is Kali Chaudas in Gujarat and the west, where the night is given to Kali instead, and Roop Chaudas for the bath that is the day's other name.

The abhyanga snan is the central act and it has to be done in the dark: an oil massage with til or coconut oil, an ubtan of chickpea flour and haldi, and a bath before sunrise while the Chaturdashi still runs, which the texts rate alongside a bath in the Ganga. Apamarga leaves are circled over the head beforehand. At dusk a single lamp — the Yama deepak — is lit at the threshold facing south, the only lamp of the year set in that direction, and it is not moved. Food stays light; the house is finished for Diwali.

Govardhan Puja falls on the first tithi of Kartika's bright fortnight, the day after Diwali. It remembers Krishna lifting Mount Govardhan on one finger for seven days to shelter Braj from Indra's rain, and the lesson drawn classically is a plain one about where sustenance actually comes from — the hill, the cattle, the land — rather than about the miracle itself. In Braj and Gujarat it is also Annakut, the mountain of food, and in Gujarat it begins the new year.

A small hill of cowdung or earth is shaped in the courtyard, decorated with flowers and grass, and worshipped at sunrise with parikrama around it. Annakut — dozens of dishes, fifty-six by custom — is offered to Krishna and then shared. Cows and bullocks are bathed, garlanded and fed first. Where the shila tradition holds, the Govardhan stone is given abhishek. It is a day of feeding, not of fasting.

Bhai Dooj falls on the second tithi of Kartika's bright fortnight and closes the five days of Diwali. The story kept is of Yamuna receiving her brother Yama at her home, feeding him and marking his forehead, and of the boon he gave in return — that a brother who takes his sister's tilak on this day need not fear an untimely end. Where Raksha Bandhan places the sister under her brother's protection, Bhai Dooj turns the direction around: here it is her blessing, at her house.

The tilak is applied in the aparahna hours, at the sister's home by custom. She performs aarti, marks his forehead with roli and rice, feeds him a full meal she has cooked herself, and prays for his long life; he gives a gift in return. Many sisters eat only once the tilak is done. Brothers without a sister traditionally go to a cousin's house, or to a riverbank.

Chhath is kept on the sixth tithi of Kartika's bright fortnight for Surya and for Chhathi Maiya, whom the tradition names as his sister and the protector of children, chiefly in Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern UP and the Nepal Terai. What sets it apart is the order of the offering: arghya goes first to the setting Sun and only afterwards to the rising one, and the tradition's own reading of that is direct — a thing in decline is owed the same regard as a thing at its height. It is also a lay observance in a way little else in the calendar is. There is no priest, no idol and no intermediary; the vrati stands in the water herself.

Four days: nahay-khay, then kharna with a single evening meal, then a nirjala fast of roughly thirty-six hours. On Shashthi evening the vrati stands in a river or pond and offers water and milk to the setting Sun from a bamboo soop carrying thekua, sugarcane, coconut, turmeric root and the season's fruit; the usha arghya at sunrise the next morning ends the fast. The prasad is cooked on a mud stove without salt or onion, and the cleanliness of its preparation is held to weigh as much as the fast itself.

Devuthani Ekadashi — Prabodhini or Devutthana in the almanacs — falls on the eleventh tithi of Kartika's bright fortnight, the day Vishnu is held to wake from the four months of yoganidra that began at Devshayani. Chaturmas ends here, and with it the pause on samskaras: the muhurat calendar reopens, and Tulsi Vivah the following day performs the season's first wedding. It is one of the handful of abujha, or swayamsiddha, muhurats — days held auspicious in their entirety, on which a marriage, a griha pravesh or a new venture needs no muhurat looked up at all, which is why so much is undertaken on it. The name is prabodhana, an awakening, and the tradition reads it in both directions: the deity is roused, and so is the household that has kept four months of restraint.

Keep the Ekadashi fast — no grains or beans, phalahar through the day, and parana the next morning inside the Dwadashi window. At pradosh the courtyard is washed and Vishnu's footprints drawn in rangoli, a small mandap of sugarcane is raised over the tulsi pot, and the family wakes the deity by name with conch, bell and clapping. What is offered is the season's first produce — sugarcane, singhada, ber, amla and the new radish — and lamps are lit at the tulsi, the threshold and the water. Any Chaturmas vow taken at Devshayani is released today, and what was given up for the four months is traditionally given away rather than simply resumed.

Tulsi Vivah is the ceremonial marriage of the tulsi plant to Vishnu in his shaligram form, kept on the eleventh or twelfth tithi of Kartika's bright fortnight, just after Devuthani Ekadashi when Vishnu is held to wake from the four months of Chaturmas. Because auspicious ceremonies pause through those months, this wedding is the first of the season and formally reopens the Hindu marriage calendar. Households without a daughter traditionally take on the merit of kanyadaan by performing it.

The tulsi pot is cleaned, given a small mandap of sugarcane, draped in a red chunri with bangles, and married to a shaligram or a Krishna murti at pradosh with the full wedding sequence — mangalashtak, the thread, the seven steps. Amla, tamarind and the season's fruit are offered. Many keep the Ekadashi fast the day before. Prasad is distributed as at any wedding.

Makar Sankranti marks the Sun's entry into Capricorn and the start of Uttarayana, the northward half of the solar year. Unlike most Hindu festivals it follows the solar calendar, which is why it holds steady around mid-January while the lunar festivals drift. Classically the day is read as a turning of the light — the nights begin to shorten, and what is associated with beginnings, giving and gratitude is held to carry further. It is kept under many names across the country: Pongal in the south, Uttarayan in Gujarat, Magh Bihu in Assam.

Bathe early, at a river if you can reach one, and offer arghya to the Sun at sunrise. Til (sesame) and gur (jaggery) are the day's foods — eaten, and given away as til-gur laddoos with the customary line about speaking sweetly. Donating grain, blankets, ghee or sesame is traditional. No fast is prescribed; this is a feast day, and kite-flying is the north-western custom.

Thai Pongal opens the Tamil month of Thai on the day the Sun turns into Capricorn, which is the same solar moment as Makar Sankranti — the two are one event under two names, and that is why both hold steady in mid-January while the lunar festivals drift. The festival is a thanksgiving to Surya, to the rain and to the cattle for the harvest just taken in, and it runs four days: Bhogi for discarding what is finished, Thai Pongal for the Sun, Mattu Pongal for the cattle, Kaanum Pongal for visiting. Thai pirandhaal vazhi pirakkum — when Thai is born, a way opens — is the line the month carries.

New rice is cooked with milk and jaggery in a clay pot set outdoors at sunrise, and the moment it boils over the household calls out Pongalo Pongal; the boiling over is the point, not an accident. The first serving goes to Surya on a banana leaf with sugarcane, a turmeric plant tied to the pot, and the season's fruit. A kolam is drawn at the threshold before dawn. Cattle are bathed, painted and garlanded on Mattu Pongal. It is a feast; no fast is kept.

Vasant Panchami falls on the fifth tithi of Magha's waxing fortnight and opens the spring season in the Hindu reckoning. The day belongs to Saraswati — speech, learning, music and the arts — and by long custom it is treated as an abujha muhurat, a day whose auspiciousness is taken as given and needs no further calculation. Children are traditionally given their first letters on it, books and instruments are set before the goddess, and the mustard fields in bloom lend the day its yellow.

Wear yellow and offer yellow flowers, saffron rice or kesari sweets to Saraswati in the forenoon, where the puja is classically placed. Books, pens, instruments and the tools of one's study are placed before the image and left unused for the day as a mark of respect. No fast is required, though many keep a light satvik diet. New learning — and a child's first writing lesson — is begun today.

Maha Shivratri falls on the fourteenth tithi of Phalguna's waning fortnight — the dark night just before the new moon — and is the greatest of the twelve monthly Shivratris. The classical framing is that the night itself is the point: Shiva is honoured in the deep hours rather than at midday, and the Puranas tie the night variously to his marriage with Parvati and to the appearance of the jyotirlinga. In practice it is a night of stillness and repetition rather than celebration. The mood is inward.

A fast is kept, from nirjala to a phalahar diet of fruit and milk. Abhishek of the Shivling with water, milk, honey and bel patra is the central act, classically repeated in each of the four prahars of the night, with the nishita kala near midnight held most valuable. Om Namah Shivaya or the Mahamrityunjaya is chanted through the vigil. The fast is broken next morning after the final puja.

Holi runs over two days: Holika Dahan on the night of the Phalguna full moon, and Rangwali Holi — the colours — the following morning. The bonfire recalls Prahlad, who walked out of the fire his aunt Holika could not survive; the colours belong to Krishna and the Braj country. Classically the festival closes the winter and opens the harvest season, and its licence — the levelling of age, rank and formality for a morning — is part of the observance rather than a departure from it.

On Holika Dahan evening the pyre is lit in the prescribed window after sunset, avoiding bhadra; people circle it and offer grain, coconut and the new harvest. The next morning is for colour, water and visiting, with gujiya and thandai as the customary foods. Some keep a light fast until the Dahan is done. Ash from the fire is traditionally applied to the forehead the following day.