Ananta Caturdaśī

When it falls

The fourteenth lunar day (caturdaśī) of the bright half of Bhādrapada, in late August or September. It is the tenth and last day of the Gaṇeśa festival that began on caturthī.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

Ananta means 'the endless'. The day belongs to Viṣṇu in that form, reclining on the serpent Śeṣa whose coils have no count, and in Andhra and Karnataka to Anantapadmanābha, the same figure at Śrī Padmanābhasvāmī in Thiruvananthapuram.

The Mahābhārata gives the vrata to the Pāṇḍavas. Kṛṣṇa told Yudhiṣṭhira to keep it during the years in the forest, and the brothers recovered their kingdom afterwards. The fourteen knots in the thread stand for the fourteen worlds, or in another telling for the fourteen years of exile.

The two observances share one day and do not compete: the Vaiṣṇava household ties the thread, and the Gaṇeśa maṇḍals of Maharashtra carry their images to the water. The image that arrived on caturthī leaves on caturdaśī, and the family says the same line to it — come again next year, and do not be late.

How the day is kept

• A fourteen-knot thread (ananta sūtra), dyed in turmeric, is tied on the right wrist of men and the left of women, and worn until it wears through.
• Fourteen of everything is offered: fourteen kinds of fruit, fourteen lamps, fourteen sweet pūrīs, before an image of Viṣṇu laid on a bed of darbha grass.
• In Maharashtra and Goa the Gaṇeśa images are carried in procession to the sea, a river or a tank, with drums and colour, and immersed at the end of the day.
• Jains keep the same date as the last day of Paryuṣaṇa in the Digambara reckoning, a day of fasting and forgiveness.

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