Ganesh Chaturthi 2026: Date, Midday Puja and Visarjan

Ganesha’s birth and the stories behind the day

The Puranas tell that Parvati shaped a boy from the turmeric paste she had used while bathing, breathed life into him and set him to guard her door. When Shiva returned and the boy barred his way, Shiva struck off his head; to console Parvati he revived the child with the head of an elephant and made him chief of his ganas, his attendants. So Ganesha, also known as Ganapati and Vinayaka, became Vighnaharta, the remover of obstacles, who is worshipped first at the start of any rite.

Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi is honoured as his birthday, and a second story explains the festival’s best-known taboo. The Moon, it is said, laughed when the pot-bellied Ganesha stumbled, and Ganesha cursed him: whoever saw the Moon on this Chaturthi would face a false accusation. The Bhagavata and Vishnu Puranas tell how even Krishna was wrongly blamed for the theft of the Syamantaka jewel, and tradition links that episode to his having seen the Moon on this night.

Hindus everywhere keep the day, but its public face owes much to Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who in 1893 championed sarvajanik (community) celebrations in Maharashtra and turned a household rite into a festival that drew whole neighbourhoods together.

The midday rule that fixes Ganesh Chaturthi

Ganesh Chaturthi falls on the Chaturthi tithi (fourth lunar day) of Shukla paksha, the waxing fortnight, in the month of Bhadrapada. As a bright-half festival it carries the same month name in purnimanta and amanta calendars alike. It usually arrives in late August or September.

Tradition holds that Ganesha was born at midday, so the governing time is madhyahna, the third of five equal parts into which the daylight hours between sunrise and sunset are divided. The festival is kept on the day when Chaturthi prevails during madhyahna, and the sthapana (installation of the idol) and main puja are ideally done within that window. Anyone asking “Ganesh Chaturthi kab hai” is really asking which day has Chaturthi at midday.

A tithi seldom starts at sunrise, so Chaturthi may begin mid-morning on one day and end before noon on the next. If it touches midday on both days, or covers neither in full, the classical digests settle the tie, and regional calendars do not always resolve it the same way; that is the usual reason for a one-day disagreement. Many panchangs also print a separate window during which the Moon should not be viewed. The date and madhyahna muhurat on this page are reckoned for New Delhi.

Sthapana and puja vidhi, step by step

Families usually bring home a clay idol a day or two ahead and prepare a clean platform covered with red or yellow cloth, often beneath a decorated mandap (canopy). On the day, after bathing, the worshipper takes a sankalp, a formal statement of intent, and seats the idol on the platform. Prana pratishtha follows: the rite, performed with Vedic mantras by a priest or from a puja book, that invites the deity’s presence into the image.

The heart of the worship is shodashopachara, sixteen offerings that treat Ganesha as an honoured guest, running from invocation and a seat through a bath, clothes, sandal paste, flowers, incense, a lamp and food to circumambulation and salutation. His favourites come by the number twenty-one: twenty-one blades of durva grass, tied in small bunches, and twenty-one modaks, the sweet dumplings he is said to love. Red hibiscus flowers and shami leaves are offered too, and the puja closes with aarti.

The idol stays for one and a half, three, five, seven or ten days, as family custom dictates, with aarti and bhog each morning and evening. Before the farewell comes uttarpuja, a closing worship asking Ganesha to return next year; then the idol is carried out to cries of “Ganpati Bappa Morya” for visarjan, the immersion. Families who keep him for the full ten days immerse on Anant Chaturdashi.

Dos and don’ts families observe

The most widely kept custom is not to look at the Moon on the night of Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi. Anyone who glimpses it by accident traditionally hears or reads the story of Krishna and the Syamantaka jewel, which is held to lift the blemish of a false charge, known as kalank or mithya dosh. While Ganesha is in residence, many families cook sattvic food without onion or garlic and keep a lamp burning beside the idol.

Care for the environment has become part of the custom. Many households now choose unbaked shadu clay idols over plaster of Paris and immerse them in a bucket or tub at home, returning the dissolved clay to the garden or to potted plants. Processions are kept considerate of neighbours, and quarrels and harsh words are traditionally avoided while Ganesha is a guest in the house.

From Lalbaug to Khairatabad: regional celebrations

Maharashtra is the festival’s heartland. Mumbai’s Lalbaug pandal draws queues that stretch for hours, while in Pune the five manache Ganpati, the honoured idols of the city’s oldest mandals, lead the immersion procession. Many devotees also make the Ashtavinayak pilgrimage to eight historic Ganesha shrines across the state.

In Goa the festival is called Chavath and is above all a family homecoming; the idol sits beneath the matoli, a canopy hung with forest produce, gourds and the fruits of the season. Karnataka keeps Gowri Habba, the Swarna Gauri vrata for Parvati, on the day before, so mother and son are welcomed on successive days. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Vinayaka Chavithi includes patri puja with twenty-one kinds of leaves, and Hyderabad’s towering Khairatabad Ganesh draws enormous crowds.

Tamil homes offer kozhukattai, steamed rice-flour dumplings filled with coconut and jaggery that are the southern cousin of the modak. Odisha and Gujarat celebrate in homes and community pandals, and Indian families in Britain, North America, the Gulf and beyond install Ganesha in temples and homes, often immersing small idols in water at home.

Chaturthi, Ketu and the Sun in Leo: astrological notes

Shukla Chaturthi is the span in which the Moon’s lead over the Sun grows from 36° to 48°. In the Muhurta Chintamani list Ganesha is the presiding deity of every Chaturthi, which is why both the waxing Vinayaka Chaturthi and the waning Sankashti Chaturthi of each month are dedicated to him.

Chaturthi belongs to the Rikta (“empty”) group of tithis, with Navami and Chaturdashi, which muhurta texts generally avoid for new ventures. Tradition sees no conflict here, since the day belongs to the remover of obstacles himself. The second half of Shukla Chaturthi also carries Vishti karana, or Bhadra, which panchangs mark separately.

At this season the Sun is usually in Leo (Simha), its own sign, and the Moon, 36° to 48° ahead, generally sits in Virgo (Kanya) or Libra (Tula), around Hasta and Chitra nakshatras. In astrological practice Ganesha is often associated with Ketu, the south lunar node, and Ganesha worship is a commonly suggested observance during Ketu periods.