Glossary · concept
Amavasya
Also written the new moon · Amavasai
Amavasya is the new moon: the night the moon disappears, because it sits in the same part of the sky as the sun and its lit face is turned away from us.
It is the thirtieth and final tithi of the month — the close of the dark paksha (waning fortnight). In the Amanta reckoning used here, the lunar month itself ends on Amavasya: one month closes at the new moon and the next begins the following day.
Traditionally Amavasya was a night to stay in, to remember ancestors (pitru), and not to begin anything new. The great exception is Diwali, kept on the Kartik Amavasya — the one new moon deliberately answered with light. Its bright-fortnight counterpart is Purnima, the full moon.
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