Śāradā Navarātri begins

When it falls

The first lunar day (pratipadā) of the bright half of Āśvina, the day after the ancestors' new moon, in late September or October. Nine nights follow; the tenth day is Vijayā Daśamī.

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

The story

The nine nights are the Goddess's. Mahiṣāsura, the buffalo demon, had a boon that no man or god could kill him; the gods pooled their powers into a woman, gave her their weapons, and she fought him for nine nights and killed him on the tenth. The Devī Māhātmya, seven hundred verses read through the festival, is the account.

Three sets of three: the first three nights are for Durgā, who destroys, the middle three for Lakṣmī, who provides, and the last three for Sarasvatī, who teaches. Some keep nine forms of Durgā, one a night (Navadurgā).

In Bengal the festival is Durgā Pūjā, and the story is a daughter's visit home: Umā comes to her parents' house with her four children for five days, and on the tenth the city weeps to send her back to Śiva on Kailāsa. Kolkata's paṇḍāls, some of them the size of temples, were inscribed by UNESCO in 2021.

How the day is kept

• Ghaṭasthāpanā on the first day: a pot of water with a coconut on it is installed, and barley is sown in a tray beside it to sprout through the nine nights.
• Gujarat dances every night: garbā in circles around the lamp of the Goddess, then ḍāṇḍiyā with sticks, in grounds that hold tens of thousands.
• Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra set out Golu (Bommai Kolu): dolls on an odd-numbered set of steps, gods at the top and the village at the bottom, with neighbours invited each evening to sing and take sundal (spiced chickpeas).
• Mysore keeps the royal Dasarā, the palace lit with a hundred thousand bulbs each night; Telangana's women build flower stacks for Bathukamma and float them at the end.
• Kanyā Pūjā on the eighth or ninth day: nine young girls are fed and honoured as the Goddess herself.

At the table

Fasting food in the north (sābūdānā, kuṭṭū flour, fruit); sundal each evening in the south, a different pulse each night; in Bengal the great bhog of khicuṛi and the sweets of the tenth day.

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