Festival
Maha Shivaratri
Also known as the Great Night of Shiva
When it falls
Phalguna Krishna Chaturdashi (the night before the new moon)
- 2026 · Sunday, 15 February 2026
- 2027 · Saturday, 6 March 2027
Significance
Maha Shivaratri — "the great night of Shiva" — is, unusually, a festival of the night and of stillness rather than light and noise. It marks, in different tellings, Shiva’s cosmic dance of creation and dissolution, his swallowing of the world-poison to save it, or his marriage to Parvati.
It is kept by staying awake and turning inward: a night of fasting, of Om Namah Shivaya repeated, of the lingam bathed through the dark hours. Where most festivals fill the night with celebration, Shivaratri empties it — the point is the watching itself.
How it’s observed
Devotees fast (many take only fruit and milk), keep a night-long vigil, and bathe the Shiva lingam in water, milk, honey and bilva leaves through the four watches of the night. It is one of the few festivals whose central act is simply to stay awake and attentive.
The timing, explained
Maha Shivaratri falls on Krishna Chaturdashi — the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight, the night just before Amavasya — in the month of Phalguna. The darkest, thinnest sliver of the waning moon is, fittingly, the night chosen for Shiva.
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