The festivals, and how their dates are found
Festival days are not fixed to the western calendar. Each is set by a tithi in a lunar month, which is why they move, and why the same festival can fall on different days in different regions.
Lunar months, named from a nakshatra
A lunar month takes its name from the nakshatra nearest the full moon inside it. Chaitra comes from Chitra, Vaishakha from Vishakha, Jyeshtha from the star of the same name, and the year continues round the same way to Phalguna, from Purva or Uttara Phalguni. Chaitra opens the sequence. The engine behind this site names the month running at any date from the Sun's sign at the new moon that begins it, which lands on the same month the classical full-moon rule gives.
Amanta and purnimanta
Two ways of drawing a month's edges use the same tithis. Amanta reckoning, kept across the south and west, closes a month at the new moon, amavasya. Purnimanta reckoning, common in the north, closes it at the full moon, purnima, roughly a fortnight later. A single festival can sit in what one region calls one month and a neighbouring region calls the next. Both readings stand.
Adhika masa: the extra month
A solar year runs a little longer than twelve lunar months, so the two drift apart until a lunar month passes without the Sun crossing into a new sign inside it. That month repeats. The first pass is adhika, extra, and generally kept without festivals. The second pass is the ordinary month, carrying its festivals as usual. The rarer reverse, a month racing past two solar crossings, is called kshaya.
The tithi-at-sunrise rule
Every festival in the table below is fixed to a tithi within its lunar month, and a tithi is read for whichever place keeps it: the tithi running at sunrise names the day, exactly as it does for an ordinary panchangam. Sunrise itself depends on longitude, so the same tithi can span sunrise in one city and miss it in another a few time zones away. That is why a reader in the United States or the United Kingdom sometimes keeps Deepavali or Ugadi a day apart from family in India.
| Festival | Set by | The day |
|---|---|---|
| Ugadi |
Chaitra Shukla Pratipada | the Telugu new year — the first day of the waxing moon in Chaitra |
| Sri Rama Navami |
Chaitra Shukla Navami | the ninth day of the same fortnight |
| Akshaya Tritiya |
Vaishakha Shukla Tritiya | the day whose gains are said never to diminish |
| Varalakshmi Vratam |
Friday before Shravana Purnima | the Friday of plenty, kept for the household's fortune |
| Krishna Janmashtami |
Shravana Krishna Ashtami | the eighth day of the waning moon in Shravana |
| Vinayaka Chaviti |
Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi | Ganesha's day — the fourth of the waxing moon in Bhadrapada |
| Dasara · Vijayadashami |
Ashwayuja Shukla Dashami | the tenth day, when what is begun is said to prevail |
| Deepavali |
Ashwayuja Amavasya | the new moon of the month — the festival of lamps |
| Karthika Pournami |
Kartika Purnima | the full moon of Kartika, kept with lamps and fasting |
| Sankranti |
Makara Sankramana | the Sun's entry into Makara — the harvest, and the turn of the year |
| Maha Shivaratri |
Magha Krishna Chaturdashi | the great night of Shiva, kept awake |
| Holi |
Phalguna Purnima | the full moon that closes the old year in colour |
We print the rule rather than a date, because a date depends on sunrise at your place.
Sankranti: the Sun's festival
Not every festival follows the Moon. Sankranti marks the Sun's entry into a new rashi, Makara Sankranti above all, the turn toward the harvest and toward longer days. The Sun's motion holds steady from year to year, so a solar festival sits close to the same Gregorian date each year, unlike the lunar ones above it.
Questions people ask
Why do festival dates change every year?
Each festival is fixed to a tithi within a lunar month, and a lunar month runs shorter than a Gregorian one. The same tithi lands on a different Gregorian date from year to year as the two calendars drift.
Why do I see a different date from family in India?
A tithi is timed to sunrise at a particular place. The same tithi can be running at sunrise in India, and not yet have begun, or already have ended, at sunrise across the United States or Europe, which shifts which day the festival falls on there.
What is adhika masa?
An extra lunar month, inserted when a full lunar month passes without the Sun crossing into a new rashi inside it. It keeps the lunar calendar in step with the solar year, and it is generally kept without marking festivals.
How are the lunar months named?
From the nakshatra nearest the full moon inside each month: Chaitra from Chitra, Vaishakha from Vishakha, and the rest of the year the same way round to Phalguna.
Read from your chart
For dates that belong to you rather than to everyone — your best months, your careful ones — read your chart. Darshanam, the free five-week reading, is built from your birth minute, and brings your kundali with it.