Chhath Puja
Standing in the river at sunset and again at sunrise.
When it falls
Sunday, 15 November 2026
By the sunrise at Har Ki Pauri, Haridwar
- The rule
- Kartika Shukla Shashthi
- Which day
- Sunrise (udaya-vyapini)
- The day on which the tithi is running at sunrise at the ghat, with the usual fallback when a tithi touches no sunrise.
- Weight
- One of the year's great days
- Returns
- Once a year
What it is
Chhath is the sixth of the bright fortnight of Kartika, kept above all in Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and the Terai, and now wherever those families live. It is the one great festival kept standing in the water: the sandhya arghya to the setting sun on the evening of Shashthi, a night of vigil, and the usha arghya to the rising sun the next morning, on Saptami. The day given here is the Shashthi of the evening arghya; the morning arghya is the dawn after. The four days begin with Nahay Khay two days before.
Where it is kept
Three of the six waters. Chhath belongs to the Ganga's lower reaches, and every one of these is upstream of that.
Ganga
Har Ki Pauri, Haridwar
Purnimanta reckoning
Har Ki Pauri has a Chhath of its own now, kept by the families from the east who have settled along the Ganga.
Triveni Sangam
Sangam, Prayagraj
Purnimanta reckoning
At the Sangam the ghats fill from the afternoon; Prayagraj is the western edge of the Chhath country.
Yamuna
Vishram Ghat, Mathura
Purnimanta reckoning
The Yamuna at Mathura and at Delhi is where the Chhath of the diaspora within India is kept.
The windows
Pratah Snan
about 96 minutes
From sunrise
- Definition
- Sunrise, until two muhurtas of the day after it. A day muhurta is a fifteenth of the daylight, about 48 minutes at the equinox and longer in summer.
This window sits after sunrise, so its panchang day and its Gregorian date agree.
Godhuli Muhurat
about 24 minutes
From sunset
- Definition
- Sunset, until half a muhurta of the night after it: about 24 minutes, a little longer in winter.
Godhuli is better known as a wedding muhurta. The evening snan rests on the sandhya rather than on that use.
Every time is given at the ghat first, and in your own zone beside it. How the clock is read
Where the timing comes from
- Source
- Computed here, checked against Drik Panchang
- Ayanamsa
- Lahiri (Chitrapaksha)
- Ghat coordinates
- Har Ki Pauri, Haridwar: 29.9457, 78.1642
Textual basis
The living usage of the ghats named below, and the puranic and dharmashastra literature on the day. A citable edition and passage is still to be added.
Every date here is computed: the tithi at the ghat's sunrise, the month named by the sankranti it holds, and the sun's entry into each sign under the Lahiri ayanamsa. Tithi, nakshatra, sunrise and windows were checked against Drik Panchang for Haridwar on eight days between September 2026 and March 2027, to the minute. The dates roll forward each morning.