Festival
Diwali
Also known as Deepavali · the Festival of Lights
When it falls
Five days · Kartik Krishna Trayodashi → Shukla Dvitiya (a five-day arc)
2027
- DhanterasWed, 27 Oct 2027
- Naraka ChaturdashiThu, 28 Oct 2027
- ★ Lakshmi PujaFri, 29 Oct 2027
- Govardhan PujaSat, 30 Oct 2027
- Bhai DoojSun, 31 Oct 2027
Significance
Diwali — from dipavali, "a row of lamps" — is the most widely kept festival of the Hindu year, and its heart is a single, deliberate gesture: meeting the darkest night with light.
Its central night falls on Amavasya (the new moon), when the moon has thinned to nothing. Rather than wait for the moon to return, the tradition answers the dark by making its own light — a diya (small clay lamp) in every window, every doorway, every sill. The festival gathers several threads at once: the return of Rama to Ayodhya after fourteen years of exile, the welcoming of Lakshmi (the goddess of prosperity and well-being) into a home clean and bright enough to deserve her, and, for Jain families, the nirvana of Mahavir. They share one instinct — that light is something you choose, especially when it is dark.
It is, above all, a homecoming festival: lights set out so that what has wandered, human or divine, can find its way back.
The five days
Dhanteras
Krishna Trayodashi
The week opens here — a day for health and honest prosperity. Dhanvantari, the physician of the gods, is remembered, and many buy a small piece of metal as a token of well-being to come.
Naraka Chaturdashi
Krishna Chaturdashi · also Choti Diwali
The dawn that breaks a long night — Krishna’s defeat of the demon Naraka. It is kept with an early-morning oil bath (abhyanga) that washes the old year off the body.
Lakshmi Puja
Krishna Amavasya · also Diwali night
Diwali night itself, on the new moon. The house is cleaned top to bottom, rangoli (coloured floor patterns) laid at the threshold, lamps lit at dusk, and Lakshmi invited in.
Govardhan Puja
Shukla Pratipada
The morning after — Krishna lifting Mount Govardhan to shelter his village from the storm. Food is offered in gratitude for what sustains.
Bhai Dooj
Shukla Dvitiya
The week closes between sisters and brothers — a tilak on the forehead, a shared meal, a blessing for each other’s long life.
The timing, explained
Diwali is reckoned by the moon, not the Western calendar, which is why its dates move each year. In this almanac the lunar month is read Amanta (new-moon to new-moon), and Diwali's central night is the Amavasya that ends the month of Ashwin — the night before the month of Kartik begins. (Under the Purnimanta reckoning used in parts of north India the same night is named "Kartik Amavasya"; the night is identical, only the month-label differs.)
The day after that new moon is Kartik Shukla 1 — the first day of the bright fortnight — which begins the new year in the Vikram Samvat calendar. So Diwali night sits exactly on the hinge of the old year and the new.
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