Durgā Aṣṭamī

When it falls

The eighth lunar day of the bright half of Āśvayuja, the eighth night of Śāradā Navarātri, in late September or October.

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

The story

Navarātri is nine nights of a single fight: Mahiṣāsura, a demon who could not be killed by any god or man, against a goddess assembled out of the anger of all of them. The eighth night is when it turns.

Bengal reads it through Durgā coming home to her parents with her children for five days, and the eighth day is the height of that visit. The Sandhi Pūjā falls at the joint of the eighth and ninth tithis, forty-eight minutes long, and the whole pandal waits for it.

In the north the day is Kanyā Pūjā: nine young girls are seated, their feet washed, and fed as the goddess herself.

How the day is kept

• A fast held by many through the day, broken after the evening pūjā.
• Weapons and the goddess's own eighteen arms are worshipped; in Bengal the Sandhi Pūjā is offered with one hundred and eight lamps and one hundred and eight lotuses.
• Nine girls, and often a boy as Bhairava, are fed pūrī, halwā and black gram and given a small gift.
• The pandals of Kolkata are at their fullest on this night, and the queues run until morning.

More fasts and vigils