Navratriਨਵਰਾਤਰੀ

Navratri means nine nights, and for nine nights each autumn much of India is given over to the goddess. Temples stay open late, neighbourhoods dance in circles around a lamp, households fast and pray, and through it all runs a single story, of the goddess who fought a demon no god could defeat, through nine nights of battle, and won on the tenth day. Navratri is the longest of the season's festivals, and it is the frame inside which Dussehra and Durga Puja stand.

What is Navratri?

Navratri is a nine-night festival of the goddess, kept in her victory form as Durga and in the sequence of her nine forms, the Navadurgas. The year holds several Navratris, but the two kept widely are Chaitra Navratri in spring and Sharad Navratri in the autumn month of Ashvina, September to October, which is by far the greater. Sharad Navratri begins on the first day of the bright half of Ashvina and ends on the ninth night; the tenth day is Dussehra, the victory day, also called Vijayadashami.

Durga's nine-night battle

The festival retells the Devi Mahatmyam's account of the buffalo demon Mahishasura, who had won the boon that no man or god could kill him and drove the gods from heaven. From their combined powers the goddess Durga was formed, armed by each god with his own weapon. She fought Mahishasura and his armies through nine nights, taking form after form as the battle changed, and on the tenth day destroyed him as he shifted out of his buffalo shape. Navratri's nine nights are those nights of battle, and its tenth day is her victory, which is why the period is also a meditation on the goddess as power, shakti, in every form she takes.

The nine forms of the goddess

Each night honours one of the Navadurga forms, each with its own colour, offering and meaning. They run in order: Shailputri, the daughter of the mountains; Brahmacharini, the ascetic; Chandraghanta, with the half-moon on her brow; Kushmanda, the creator of the universe's warmth; Skandamata, mother of the war god Skanda; Katyayani, the fierce warrior born to destroy demons; Kalaratri, the dark night that swallows time itself; Mahagauri, the radiant and forgiving; and Siddhidatri, the giver of siddhis, perfections, who closes the nine. Many devotees dress in the colour assigned to each day, so the festival visibly changes colour as it turns.

How is Navratri celebrated?

In Gujarat the nights belong to garba, the circle dance performed around a perforated earthen lamp, the garba deep, honouring the goddess as the womb of life, and to dandiya raas, danced with paired sticks; Ahmedabad and Vadodara host grounds of thousands of dancers. In Bengal the last days become Durga Puja, with great clay images of the goddess installed in pandals, worshipped with drums and conch shells, and immersed on the tenth day. In the south, homes arrange Golu, stepped displays of dolls and figures, and observe Ayudha Puja for tools and instruments. Across the north, Ramlila plays run through the same nine nights, joining Ram's story to the goddess's.

Fasting during Navratri

Many devotees keep a vrat, a fast, through the nine days, some for the whole period and some keeping the first and last days, or Ashtami, the eighth. The fast is usually a grain-free diet rather than total abstinence: buckwheat (kuttu) and water-chestnut (singhara) flours, sago (sabudana), potatoes, fruit, milk and curd, cooked with rock salt, sendha namak, instead of common salt, and without onion and garlic. The eighth and ninth days often carry kanya puja, when young girls are worshipped as forms of the goddess, their feet washed and a meal served to them.

Navratri in Punjab

Punjab keeps Navratri in the northern manner: Devi temples draw long queues from the first morning, with famous shrines of the region such as the goddess temples of the Shivalik hills filling through the nine days, households keep the vrat and kanya puja, and towns stage the Ramlila on public grounds each night toward Dussehra. Punjab's garba grounds have also grown with its cities, and student and housing-society celebrations in Ludhiana, Mohali and Jalandhar now fill grounds with dancers on the Gujarat pattern, a sign of how the nine nights travel. The festival ends, as everywhere in the north, with the burning of Ravana's effigies and the turn toward Diwali.

When is Navratri?

Sharad Navratri runs from the first to the ninth day of the bright half of Ashvina, with Vijayadashami on the tenth, placing it in September or October; in 2026 it runs from 11 to 19 October, with Dussehra on 20 October. Chaitra Navratri falls in March or April and ends on Ram Navami, the birthday of Ram.