Kārtīka Pūrṇimā

When it falls

The full moon of Kārttika, in November. Tamil Nadu keeps Kārttigai Dīpam when the star Kṛttikā coincides with the full moon, sometimes a day apart.

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

The story

In the Śaiva telling this is Tripurī Pūrṇimā, the day Śiva destroyed the three flying cities of the demons with a single arrow, and the gods lit lamps to celebrate; hence the name Dev Dīpāvali, the gods' own festival of lamps. Vaiṣṇavas keep it for Viṣṇu's fish form (Matsya) and for the end of his four-month sleep.

At Tiruvaṇṇāmalai the day is the climax of ten days of Kārttigai: at dusk a cauldron of ghee is lit on the summit of Aruṇācala hill and the flame is seen for miles; the hill is Śiva as a column of fire.

In Odisha it is Boita Bandāna, when children float little boats of paper and banana bark on the water at dawn in memory of the sailors who left for Bali and Java with the winter wind.

How the day is kept

• Vārāṇasī lights every step of every ghat along the Gaṅgā at dusk; a million lamps by the city's count, and the river itself carries the floating ones.
• Tamil homes line every sill with clay lamps; the Kārttigai lamp is the one the year's other lamps are lit from.
• A bath in the Gaṅgā or any river at dawn (Kārttika snāna) closes a month of dawn baths for those who keep the whole month.
• Sikhs keep the same full moon for Guru Nānak's birthday, Guru Nānak Gurpurab, with processions and the reading of the Guru Granth Sāhib.

More festivals of light