When Navratri begins, and how the day is chosen

Navratri begins on the Ashwina shukla pratipada that runs for three muhurtas (two hours and twenty-four minutes) after sunrise. In 2026 that is Sunday, 11 October; in 2027, Thursday, 30 September.

The dates: Navratri 2026 · 2027 · Vijayadashami 2026.

Navratri is the rite that runs from the Ashwina shukla pratipada to the Mahanavami. The text is plain about what it consists of: the puja is the principal act, and fasting, the Saptashati and other recitations are its limbs, kept according to the family's custom. So the question of when it begins is the question of when the first puja, the setting of the kalasha, may be done.

Which pratipada

The text gives the rule in descending order of preference:

• The pratipada that covers three muhurtas after sunrise.
• Failing that, one covering two muhurtas.
• Some authorities allow even one muhurta.
• Never the pratipada joined to the amavasya; the text says many works hold this.

And then the exception: if the pratipada covers less than a muhurta after sunrise, or does not touch sunrise at all, the pratipada joined to the amavasya is taken after all. The prohibition applies only when there is another day to move to.

At what time

The beginning is made within ten ghatikas of sunrise, which is four hours. If that is not possible, at midday, in the Abhijit Muhurta. Never in the afternoon.

Three further things are to be avoided: the first sixteen nadis of the pratipada (six hours and twenty-four minutes), the nakshatra chitra, and the yoga vaidhriti. The closing sentence of the passage settles what happens when they collide with the timing: they are to be kept where the stated time allows, and neither the forenoon nor the pratipada itself is to be given up for their sake. That closing sentence decides 2026.

2026: the prohibitions give way

The pratipada begins at 9:20 pm on Saturday 10 October and ends at 9:32 pm on Sunday the 11th. It covers the whole morning of the 11th, and its first sixteen nadis are over at 3:44 am, before dawn. By the first rule, the 11th.

But chitra begins at 9:43 pm on the 10th and runs until 10:33 pm on the 11th, past the end of the pratipada; vaidhriti runs from 10:02 pm on the 10th until 9:06 pm on the 11th. The only part of the pratipada free of both is its first twenty-three minutes, at night, inside the sixteen nadis that are to be avoided anyway. By the closing sentence, neither moves the beginning: Sunday 11 October, within four hours of sunrise at your own place.

2027: the exception applies

The amavasya runs until 8:06 am on Thursday 30 September. The pratipada then runs until 5:36 am on 1 October, before sunrise across almost all of India, so it touches neither sunrise; in the far east, where the Sun is up by 5:30, it holds less than a muhurta after sunrise. Either way the exception applies: the general rule has no day to give, and the pratipada joined to the amavasya is taken, Thursday 30 September, once the pratipada has begun at 8:06 am, and within four hours of sunrise.

Its first sixteen nadis run from 8:06 am to 2:30 pm and cover that whole window. By the closing sentence they give way too: the forenoon and the pratipada are not given up for them.

The passage

अथ नवरात्रारंभनिर्णयः । स च नवरात्रारंभः सूर्योदयोत्तरं त्रिमुहूर्तव्यापिन्यां प्रतिपदि कार्यः ॥ तदभावे द्विमुहूर्तव्यापिन्यामपि ॥ क्वचिन्मुहूर्तमात्रव्यापिन्यामप्युक्तः ॥ सर्वथा दर्शयुक्तप्रतिपदि न कार्य इति बहुग्रंथसंमतम् ॥ मुहूर्तन्यूनव्याप्तौ सूर्योदयास्पर्शे वा दर्शयुतापि ग्राह्या ॥

तत्र सूर्योदयोत्तरं दशघटीमध्ये तत्रासंभवे मध्याह्नेऽभिजिन्मुहूर्ते प्रारंभः कार्यो न त्वपराह्ने ॥ एवं च प्रतिपद आद्यषोडशनाडीनिषेधश्चित्रावैधृतियोगनिषेधश्चोक्तकालानुरोधेन सति संभवे पालनीयो न तु निषेधानुरोधेन पूर्वाह्नः प्रारंभकालः प्रतिपत्तिथिर्वातिक्रमणीयः ॥

Between these two passages the text settles two rarer cases: a pratipada that fills the whole first day and runs on into the second, where the first day is taken; and, after the Purusharthachintamani, one that begins four or five muhurtas into the first day and is shrinking by the second, where the first day is taken even though it is joined to the amavasya. This is a second exception to the prohibition. It also limits the objection to a pratipada touched by the dvitiya. Neither case arises in 2026 or 2027.

How these figures were computed

Tithi, nakshatra and yoga are computed from the Swiss Ephemeris on the Lahiri ayanamsha. Their beginning and end are instants, the same across India in IST; only sunrise, and so the four-hour window, is local. Your city's sunrise is on its daily page: Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi.