When is Sharad Navratri Begins?

How the date is decided

Sharad Navratri begins on Ashwin Shukla Pratipada — the first tithi of the waxing fortnight of Ashwin — judged at sunrise. The date above is that day, which is the day of Ghatasthapana.

Sunrise is the default reference across this calendar. The day whose sunrise falls under Pratipada is the day the sequence opens on.

The nine nights are not counted off

This is the part worth understanding, because it explains nearly every discrepancy between two published Navratri calendars.

The named days of the sequence are separate rules, each with its own tithi and its own reference moment, evaluated independently:

Nothing adds seven days to Ghatasthapana to find Ashtami. Because the four rules are judged at three different moments of the day, and because tithis run anywhere from about 19 to 26 hours, the sequence is not guaranteed to occupy nine or ten consecutive dates.

Almanacs describe the two cases as a tithi being kshaya — lost, because it began and ended without covering the reference moment — or vriddhi, doubled because it covered two. A kshaya Ashtami is why some years show Durga Ashtami and Maha Navami on the same civil date.

When the Pratipada touches no sunrise

The same mechanism produces one case worth showing, because it is where a naive calculation quietly fails.

Our rule for the opening day is judged at sunrise. But a tithi that begins after one sunrise and ends before the next covers no sunrise at all — it is kshaya at that reference. A rule that only asks “which sunrise falls under Pratipada” then finds no day, and a calendar built on it drops the year silently.

2027 is exactly that year. At sunrise on 30 September the tithi is still Amavasya; by sunrise on 1 October it is already Dwitiya. The Pratipada began and ended in between, living entirely inside the 30th.

Classical practice has the answer: Ghatasthapana is performed on the day the Pratipada prevails, whether or not it reaches a sunrise. So the date above for 2027 is 30 September, and the same fallback applies in every year the opening tithi is lost this way.

Why the Gregorian date moves

Ashwin Shukla Pratipada lands from late September to mid-October. The lunar year runs about eleven days short of the solar one, so the sequence drifts earlier each year until an intercalary month resets it. Major festivals are suppressed inside an Adhika month, so a leap Ashwin moves the whole sequence to the true Ashwin.

What we do not compute

We fix the opening day. We do not compute the Ghatasthapana muhurat within it, the nine-day devi assignments, the regional Golu and Garba conventions, or the Bengali Durga Puja schedule, which follows its own reckoning and can differ from the days above.

For the day’s own numbers in your city — sunrise, the exact tithi boundaries, and the auspicious and inauspicious windows — open the panchang.