Diwali (Deepavali) 2026

Diwali is the victory of light over darkness — the homecoming of Shri Ram after fourteen years of vanavas, the rakshasa Ravan defeated. It is the festival of lamps, of light and of joy, the dawn of a righteous era, celebrated across the whole of Bharat bhukhand with a joy no other night of the year knows. On the new-moon night of Kartik the Lord returned to Ayodhya with Mata Sita and Lakshman, and the city — unwilling to receive its Lord in the dark — set rows of earthen lamps along every street, wall and ghat of the Sarayu. Deepavali is that word exactly: a row of lights. To the same night belong two more rememberings. At the churning of the ocean, Goddess Lakshmi rose from the waters on Kartik Amavasya, and it is on this night that she is believed to walk from house to house, entering those that are clean, lit and awake. And in the south the day before belongs to Shri Krishna, who freed the sixteen thousand captives of Narakasura — Naraka Chaturdashi is kept there as Deepavali proper, with an oil bath before dawn. Three stories, one meaning: the darkest night of the year is met with light that people themselves have to kindle.

The festival is a sequence, not a single day, and in 2026 it runs from Friday, 6 November to Wednesday, 11 November. Dhanteras opens it on the 6th, the day of Dhanvantari, when metal is brought into the house and the Yama Deepam is set facing south. Kali Chaudas — Chhoti Diwali — follows on Saturday the 7th, with the Narak Chaturdashi abhyang snan at first light on Sunday. Sunday, 8 November is Diwali itself, the Kartik Amavasya, when Lakshmi and Ganesha are worshipped together in the Pradosh Kaal after sunset. Govardhan Puja comes on Tuesday, 10 November — not Monday, because the Amavasya tithi runs until past noon on the 9th — and Bhai Dooj closes the sequence on Wednesday, 11 November. Maharashtra adds Govatsa Dwadashi on Thursday the 5th. The day-by-day muhurats are set out in the panel above.

In practice the weeks before are as much of the festival as the days themselves. Houses are emptied, scrubbed and whitewashed, because Goddess Lakshmi is said to enter only the house that is ready to receive her. Rangoli is drawn at the threshold and small footprints traced inward from the door. Diyas are set on parapets and window sills and floated on water; new clothes are worn, sweets exchanged, and the family gathers for the puja at dusk with the chowki laid, the kalash filled, the account books consecrated in the chopda pujan of traders, and the aarti sung to Lakshmi and Ganesha together — prosperity beside wisdom, since one without the other has never been the blessing anyone wanted. On Govardhan Puja the Annakut is raised, a mountain of cooked food offered before Giriraj, and Gujarat greets its new year, Bestu Varas, on the same morning. Two days later, on Bhai Dooj, sisters apply the tilak and brothers come to eat at their sisters' houses, as Yamuna ji once received Yama.

For darshan, Ayodhya is where the festival began and where it is still kept most spectacularly. Deepotsav on the eve of Diwali lines Ram ki Paidi and the ghats of the Sarayu with lamps beyond counting — the 2025 Deepotsav lit 26,17,215 of them across fifty-six ghats for a Guinness World Record, with a second record the same evening for 2,128 Vedacharyas performing the maha-aarti on the bank — and the city welcomes Shri Ram home exactly as it once did. In Kashi the rarest darshan of the year opens now: the golden Annapurna, kept upstairs and shown only across the days from Dhanteras to Annakut, when the queue runs down the gali and the goddess's khazana of coins is handed back to devotees with lava to keep in the kitchen. In Braj the Annakut belongs to Giriraj himself — Banke Bihari in Vrindavan and Dwarkadhish in Mathura hold their own, and the Govardhan parikrama fills. Kolhapur's Mahalakshmi and Tirumala's Venkateswara, Lakshmi's own homes, keep the night with lamps and abhishek. Wherever you go, expect crowds at their annual peak and confirm timings before you travel.