Diwali 2026: Date, Lakshmi Puja Muhurat and Meaning

What Diwali celebrates

Deepavali means “a row of lamps”, and almost every story attached to the night is about light returning. In much of North India it marks Rama’s homecoming to Ayodhya after fourteen years of exile and the defeat of Ravana, when the townspeople are said to have lined the streets with oil lamps. A second thread runs through the Puranas: Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, rose from the churning of the cosmic ocean and chose Vishnu as her consort, so the new-moon night of Kartika became the night to invite her into the home.

The festival is really a five-day arc. It opens with Dhanteras, continues with Naraka Chaturdashi (often called Chhoti Diwali), reaches its height with Lakshmi Puja on the Amavasya, and closes with Govardhan Puja and Bhai Dooj. Other traditions share the same night for their own reasons: Jains remember the nirvana of Mahavira at Pavapuri, and Sikhs observe Bandi Chhor Divas, recalling Guru Hargobind’s release from Gwalior Fort.

How the Diwali date is determined

Diwali follows the Moon, not the solar calendar, which is why it moves between mid-October and mid-November. The festival falls on the Amavasya tithi of Kartika as North Indian (purnimanta) calendars name the months. Calendars in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana count months from new moon to new moon (amanta) and call the same night Ashvin Amavasya. Both systems point to one and the same new moon; only the month label differs.

A tithi is a lunar day of variable length, and it rarely begins at sunrise. Amavasya can start in the afternoon of one day and end in the evening of the next. The classical rule for Lakshmi Puja is that Amavasya must prevail during pradosh, the window of roughly two and a half hours after sunset. When it covers the pradosh of two consecutive evenings, or only part of each, digests such as the Dharma Sindhu and the Nirnaya Sindhu give tie-breaking rules, and panchang makers sometimes read those rules differently. That is why people search “Diwali kab hai” every year and occasionally find two dates. The date on this page applies the pradosh rule for New Delhi.

Lakshmi Puja vidhi: how the evening puja is done

Preparation starts days earlier with a thorough cleaning of the house, since the tradition holds that Lakshmi enters homes that are clean and lit. On the day, a rangoli is drawn at the threshold, small footprints are painted leading inward, and a toran of mango leaves or marigolds is hung over the door.

The altar is a raised platform covered with red or yellow cloth. A kalash filled with water and topped with mango leaves and a coconut is placed on a small heap of rice, with images of Ganesha and Lakshmi beside it; many homes add Kubera, Saraswati, silver coins and the family’s account books. The puja begins with a sankalp, in which the worshipper states name, gotra, place and date, and Ganesha is worshipped first. Lakshmi is then offered kumkum, turmeric, unbroken rice (akshat), lotus or marigold flowers, incense, a ghee lamp, sweets, fruit and the traditional kheel-batashe (puffed rice with sugar drops). Many families recite the Shri Sukta and close with aarti.

After the puja, lamps are carried from the altar to every doorway, window, the tulsi plant and the water source of the house. Traders perform Chopda Pujan, opening new ledgers with a swastika and the words Shubh and Labh written in kumkum.

Traditional dos and don’ts

Customs vary by family, but a few are widely shared. People wear new or freshly washed clothes, keep the house bright from sunset onward, share sweets with neighbours, visit elders and give food or clothing to those in need. Many households keep one lamp burning through the night.

Traditionally, families avoid quarrels and harsh words on the day, avoid leaving the house dark at dusk, and in many homes do not sweep the floor after the evening puja, so that the goddess is not “swept out”. Meat and alcohol are generally kept out of the house on Lakshmi Puja night. Lamps and fireworks deserve ordinary care: keep them away from curtains, children and animals.

Regional variations

In Bengal, Odisha and Assam the same Amavasya night is devoted to Kali Puja, performed around midnight. In Odisha families also burn bundles of jute stalks to light the path for ancestors. Maharashtra celebrates with a spread of homemade snacks known as faral, and Lakshmi Pujan is often performed with a broom, honoured as a symbol of the goddess who removes poverty.

For Gujarati traders Diwali closes the Vikram Samvat year; the next morning is Bestu Varas, the new year. Across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, Deepavali is celebrated chiefly at dawn on Naraka Chaturdashi with an oil bath before sunrise and new clothes, while Goa burns effigies of Narakasura in the early hours. Nepal observes the same night as part of Tihar.

Astrological significance of Diwali night

At Amavasya the Moon closes the last twelve degrees on the Sun until the two stand at the same longitude, so the Moon is dark. At Diwali this conjunction happens in sidereal Libra (Tula), the sign in which the Sun is debilitated, so the festival falls on the new moon when the solar light is symbolically at its weakest. Lighting lamps on that night is read as kindling an inner light when the outer one is low.

Libra is ruled by Venus (Shukra), the planet of comfort, beauty and wealth in Vedic astrology, and the conjunction usually falls in Chitra, Swati or Vishakha nakshatra. For the puja itself, astrologers favour a sthira (fixed) lagna, because a fixed sign rising at the moment of invocation is associated with prosperity that stays. In the autumn evening that sign is usually Taurus (Vrishabha); Leo (Simha), another fixed sign, rises in the small hours and is used by those who perform the late-night nishita puja.