Navratri 2026 Dates — Ghatasthapana Muhurat and the Nine Days

Navratri means nine nights, and it comes twice a year in its major form. Chaitra Navratri falls in spring and ends with Ram Navami; Shardiya Navratri falls in autumn and ends with Dussehra. Both are listed above for your chosen year, with every one of the nine days dated.

The navratri 2026 dates shift each year because the festival begins on the pratipada tithi of the bright half - the day after the new moon - in Chaitra and Ashwin. The calculator finds that tithi from the actual position of the Sun and Moon and places the first day on the date it prevails at your city's sunrise.

Two more Navratris exist, called Gupt Navratri, in Magha and Ashadha. They are observed mainly by tantric practitioners and pass largely unnoticed in household practice, which is why most calendars list only the two major ones.

Each of the nine days belongs to one form of Durga, and the sequence is fixed. The nine devi days list below matches the dates in the table above.

The colours associated with each day vary by region and are a relatively modern addition, popularised in Gujarat and Maharashtra. The forms themselves come from the Devi Mahatmya and are consistent across traditions.

The eighth and ninth days carry the most weight in practice. Ashtami is when most families perform kanya pujan, and the durga ashtami navami date decides when the fast ends - some close it on Ashtami and others on Navami, depending on family custom. Both are marked in the table for each Navratri.

The festival opens with ghatasthapana - the installation of the kalash. The ghatasthapana muhurat falls in the first third of the day, and the window shown at the top of this page is computed from your own sunrise rather than a national average.

The setup is simple. A bed of clean soil is laid in the north-east of the puja space and barley seeds are sown in it. On top sits a clay or metal pot filled with water, its mouth ringed with mango leaves and topped with a whole coconut wrapped in red cloth. The family faces east while installing it.

Where the ghatasthapana muhurat falls inside rahu kaal or another forbidden stretch, Abhijit muhurat around solar noon is the accepted alternative, and it is given beside the main window. Some households also keep an akhand jyoti - a lamp burning continuously for all nine days - which is a vow rather than a requirement, and should not be taken up unless someone can tend it.

At the end of the nine days, the barley sprouts are examined. Dense, even, green growth is read as a good sign for the year; patchy or yellow growth is taken as a caution. The sprouts are then distributed to family members.

The chaitra navratri dates fall in March or April, opening the Hindu lunar new year. In Maharashtra the first day is Gudi Padwa, in Andhra and Karnataka it is Ugadi, and in Kashmir it is Navreh - all the same tithi under different names.

What distinguishes Chaitra Navratri from the autumn one is its close: the ninth day is Ram Navami, the birth of Rama, rather than the Durga-centred Navami of the autumn. The nine days themselves follow the same devi sequence, but the emphasis in north India shifts noticeably towards Rama in the final days.

Observance is generally quieter than in autumn. There is no Durga Puja pandal culture around it, no Garba on the scale of Gujarat's Navratri, and fewer public events - it is kept mostly at home, with fasting, the akhand jyoti and the recitation of Durga Saptashati or the Ramcharitmanas.

The chaitra navratri dates for your chosen year, with all nine days and the ghatasthapana window, are in the table above.

The navratri fasting rules are the same as for any Hindu vrat: no grains, no pulses, no onion or garlic, no non-vegetarian food, and rock salt in place of table salt. What is allowed is fruit, milk, curd, potato and other roots, and flours made from buckwheat, water chestnut or amaranth.

Three forms are common. The strictest is a full nine-day phalahar fast, often with one meal a day. The most widespread is fasting on the first day and on Ashtami or Navami only. And a great many families simply keep the kitchen vegetarian and free of onion and garlic for the nine days without any formal fast at all - which the tradition accepts without comment.

The fast closes with kanya pujan, when nine young girls - and usually a young boy as Batuk Bhairav - are washed at the feet, fed halwa, puri and chana, and given a small gift and money. This is the part almost every observing household keeps, whatever else it does or does not do.

As with every fast, the navratri fasting rules scale to what a person can manage. Anyone on medication, pregnant, nursing, diabetic or elderly keeps the lightest form, and no tradition treats that as a lesser observance.

1. The lunar month. The Sun's sidereal position fixes Chaitra and Ashwin; the first tithi of the bright half within each is found from the Moon's elongation.

2. The first day. The day on which that tithi prevails at your city's sunrise becomes day one, and the following eight days follow it.

3. The muhurat. Ghatasthapana and Abhijit windows are computed from your own sunrise and sunset rather than from a fixed clock time.

Gujarat turns the nine nights into the largest participatory dance event in the world. Garba is performed around a lamp in an earthen pot, and Dandiya Raas follows later in the evening. Whole cities stay up, and the fast is kept by many who dance until two in the morning.

West Bengal observes the last four days as Durga Puja, on a scale that dwarfs everything else in the calendar. The idol is installed on Sashthi, worshipped through Saptami, Ashtami and Navami, and immersed on Dashami. Ashtami's Sandhi Puja, at the junction of Ashtami and Navami, is the emotional centre of the whole festival.

Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra keep Golu - a stepped display of dolls and figures set up at home for the nine days, with families visiting one another to see the arrangement. Ayudha Puja on Navami consecrates tools, books and vehicles.

North India keeps it quietest at home - fasting, the akhand jyoti, the Durga Saptashati - and loudest in public, with Ramlila performances running through the nine nights and ending in the burning of Ravana's effigy on Dussehra.

The dates are identical everywhere. What differs is entirely what is done with them.

Before it begins. Clean the puja space, arrange soil and barley for the kalash, and buy the phalahar staples - kuttu and singhara flour, sendha namak, sabudana, fruit and milk - before day one, because shops run short in the first two days.

The akhand jyoti. A lamp burning continuously for nine days is a serious undertaking, not a decoration. It needs someone in the house at all times and a steady oil supply. Families who cannot guarantee that keep a lamp lit during the morning and evening aarti instead, which carries no shortfall.

Kanya pujan. Arrange the girls in advance - nine, aged between two and ten by custom, with a young boy as Batuk Bhairav. Halwa, puri and kala chana are the standard offering, with a gift and a small amount of money. In cities where families are not close by, temples organise this collectively.

After Navami. The kalash is moved on Dashami, the barley sprouts distributed, and the water poured at the root of a tree or into a river. Dussehra follows the same day in the autumn; Ram Navami closes the spring Navratri on the ninth day itself.

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