Upcoming Hindu Festivals

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.

The first tithi of Chaitra's bright fortnight opens the lunar year across the Deccan — Ugadi in Andhra, Telangana and Karnataka, Gudi Padwa in Maharashtra and Goa, Cheti Chand for Sindhis, Navreh in Kashmir, and the same morning begins Chaitra Navratri in the north. Classically it is the day Brahma is held to have begun creation, and it is one of the three and a half abujha muhurats of the year, auspicious without a calculated window. Which day counts as new year is regional convention rather than a single rule: north India largely reckons from Diwali and Gujarat from Govardhan Puja, and none of those is wrong within its own tradition.

In Maharashtra the gudi goes up at the door in the morning — a bamboo pole, bright silk, neem and mango leaves, a sugar garland and an inverted copper pot at the top — and comes down before sunset. Ugadi pachadi is eaten first: neem flower, jaggery, tamarind, green chilli, salt and raw mango, six tastes for the six things a year brings, taken together and deliberately. Panchanga shravanam follows, the coming year's almanac read aloud. Bathe with oil beforehand, put on new clothes, and begin whatever you have been holding back.

Ram Navami marks the birth of Rama on the ninth tithi of Chaitra's bright fortnight, at midday, and closes the Chaitra Navratri that begins nine days earlier. Both the Valmiki Ramayana and the Ramcharitmanas place the birth in the madhyahna hours, which is why this festival is fixed by midday rather than by midnight as at Janmashtami. The day is read as dharma taking human form, and the qualities remembered are steadiness, restraint and keeping one's word rather than conquest.

A fast is commonly kept from sunrise until the midday puja and taken as phalahar. The birth is celebrated at noon with a cradle ceremony; panakam — jaggery and pepper sherbet — and kosambari are offered as prasad in the south. Reciting or listening to the Balkand or the Sundarkand is traditional, as is visiting a Rama temple. Grains, onion and garlic are set aside for the day.

Hanuman Jayanti falls on the Chaitra full moon in the North Indian reckoning and celebrates the appearance of Hanuman — the servant, the strength, and one of the chiranjivis the texts hold to be still present. Because Hanuman is invoked for courage, protection, and relief from the harder transits of Mangal, the day carries a practical reputation alongside the devotional one. Southern and western traditions keep Hanuman's day at other points in the year; the Chaitra Purnima date is the northern custom.

Read the Hanuman Chalisa, the Sundarkand or the Bajrang Baan, at sunrise or in the evening after bathing. The offerings are sindoor mixed with chameli oil, a red flag or cloth, boondi or laddoo, and tulsi. Many keep a fast on fruit and milk through the day, breaking it after the evening puja. Simple food and brahmacharya for the day are the customary discipline.

Akshaya means undiminishing, and the third tithi of Vaishakha's bright fortnight is held to keep whatever is started on it from wearing out. It is one of the three and a half abujha muhurats — days taken as auspicious in full, needing no further calculation — and the astrological reason usually given is that the Sun is exalted in Aries and the Moon in Taurus around this window. The Puranas hang several beginnings on it: Parashurama's appearance, Vyasa beginning to dictate the Mahabharata to Ganesha, the Akshaya Patra given to Draupadi, Sudama's handful of rice. The classical instruction on the day is about giving; buying gold is a later commercial custom laid over that.

Begin what has been waiting — a business, a build, a marriage, a course of study — without checking a muhurat, since the day is one. Daan is the prescribed act, and the traditional list is seasonal and unglamorous: water, a pot, curd-rice, sattu, grain, an umbrella, footwear, a fan. Lakshmi-Narayana are worshipped with tulsi and yellow flowers, many keeping a light fast until the puja is done. In Braj the Banke Bihari's feet are visible only today.