Chhath Puja 2026: 13-16 November, Full Four-Day Schedule

2026-08-26

Chhath Puja 2026 is a four-day vrat, 13 to 16 November: Nahay-Khay on Friday the 13th, Kharna on the 14th, Sandhya Arghya at sunset 5:26 pm on Sunday the 15th, and Usha Arghya at sunrise 6:45 am on Monday the 16th. Every time here is read from our panchang engine for Delhi.

Chhath Puja 2026 runs from Friday, 13 November to Monday, 16 November. Four days, two arghyas, and one unbroken fast sitting in the middle of them. Every date, tithi, sunrise and sunset on this page was read from the AstroVedansh panchang engine for Delhi rather than copied off a printed calendar — and one detail that most listings quietly blur is explained below.

Chhath Puja 2026 dates: the four days at a glance

The vrat is anchored to Kartika Shukla Shashthi. It opens on Chaturthi with Nahay-Khay and closes on the morning after Shashthi has ended.

Measured, not estimated: every value above was read directly from the AstroVedansh panchang engine for Delhi, IST.

Why the morning arghya falls on Saptami, not Shashthi

Shashthi tithi begins at 11:24 pm on 14 November and ends at 2:01 am on 16 November. Sunset on 15 November, at 5:26 pm, falls squarely inside it — which is what fixes the Sandhya Arghya to that evening. But by sunrise on 16 November, at 6:45 am, Shashthi has already handed over to Saptami.

Nothing is wrong and nothing needs moving. Chhath is a Shashthi vrat named for its evening arghya; the Usha Arghya is offered at the very next sunrise, whatever tithi that sunrise happens to carry. Listings that print "Usha Arghya on Shashthi" are repeating the festival's name rather than reading the tithi for that morning.

Day 1: Nahay-Khay, Friday 13 November

The observer — the parvaitin — bathes, ideally in a river, and the house is scrubbed down with her. From this day the kitchen changes: no onion, no garlic, no leftovers, and in many families a separate mud stove fired with mango wood. The single meal is deliberately plain — arwa rice, chana dal, lauki, a little rock salt. Everyone else in the house eats only after the parvaitin has eaten.

The word means what it says: bathe, then eat. It is not a fast day; it is the day the household is made ready for one.

Day 2: Kharna, Saturday 14 November

A day-long fast without water, broken after sunset — 5:27 pm in Delhi — with rasiao-kheer cooked in jaggery and milk, a roti, and a banana. The parvaitin eats alone, often in silence, sometimes with the family sitting apart until she has finished. When she puts down the plate, the fast begins, and it will not be broken for roughly thirty-six hours.

The Kharna prasad is shared afterwards. For most families this is the emotional centre of the four days, more than either arghya.

Day 3: Sandhya Arghya, Sunday 15 November

The main day. Through the afternoon the thekua is fried and the daura is loaded, and by late afternoon the family walks to the ghat. The parvaitin stands in the water and offers arghya to the setting sun. In Delhi the sun sets at 5:26 pm on this date; the offering is made in the window as the disc goes down, not at a clock-time computed separately.

Many families keep the night at the ghat, and some perform Kosi bharai — lit lamps under a canopy of sugarcane — usually where a vow has been fulfilled.

Day 4: Usha Arghya, Monday 16 November

Back at the water before first light. Arghya is offered to the rising sun; sunrise in Delhi is 6:45 am. Only after this does the parvaitin take paran, traditionally with raw ginger and water or a little sharbat, then the Kharna and Chhath prasad.

Why the setting sun is worshipped first

This is the question worth asking, because Chhath is the only major Indian festival that puts the setting sun before the rising one. Everywhere else — Makar Sankranti, Ratha Saptami, the daily arghya — the sun is greeted at dawn.

The explanation most often given by practising families and by priests at the ghats is that Surya has two consorts, Usha and Pratyusha: the evening arghya is for Pratyusha, the morning one for Usha, and the vrat is incomplete without both. A second, quieter reading is that you thank first and ask afterwards — the day that has ended is acknowledged before the day that is coming is requested.

We should be straight about the status of these. Chhath's textual footing is thin. There is no single shastric verse that commands the sunset arghya and explains it; the practice is folk-rooted, regionally transmitted, and older in the doing than in the writing. Even the identity of Chhathi Maiya is not uniform — variously Shashthi Devi, Surya's sister, or Katyayani depending on whom you ask. Where the tradition gives no reason, the honest answer is that it gives no reason.

What we will not do is manufacture one. The claims circulating each November about the sun's rays being "safest" at these two moments, or about standing in cold water boosting immunity, are not part of the tradition and are not supported. Chhath does not need a health justification. It has never asked for one.

The rigour of the vrat, and who keeps it

The fast from Kharna's evening meal to the Usha Arghya is nirjala — no food, no water, roughly thirty-six hours, through a full day that includes cooking, walking to the ghat and standing in river water.

Most parvaitins are women, but Chhath is one of the few vrats in which men fast in real numbers, in their own right and not as helpers. The vrat also passes down: once a family begins it, it is usually kept every year and handed on rather than dropped.

The daura, the thekua and the ghat

• Daura and soop. A bamboo basket and a winnowing fan — bamboo and clay only, no steel, no plastic. The daura is carried on the shoulder to the ghat and, by custom, is not set down on bare ground on the way.
• Thekua. Wheat flour, jaggery and ghee, deep-fried. No refined sugar, no leavening. It is made at home on Day 3, and tasting it while cooking is not done.
• The offering. Sugarcane with leaves on, coconut, banana, singhara, suthni, daab nimbu, turmeric and ginger still in the soil they grew in.
• The ghat. The arghya is offered standing in the water, not from the bank. Where there is no river, a pond, a canal or a courtyard tank serves.

Two honest cautions before you plan

First, Rahu Kaal. On Sunday 15 November, Rahu Kaal in Delhi runs 4:06 pm to 5:26 pm — it ends exactly at sunset, covering the whole Sandhya Arghya approach. Do not move the arghya because of it. Rahu Kaal is a rule for elective muhurta, for work you choose the hour of; Chhath's hour is chosen by the sun itself. You can check the day's window on our Rahu Kaal page, but it does not govern this.

Second, and more practically: sunrise, sunset and moonrise differ by city, so use your own city's panchang and not Delhi's.

Estimated, not measured: these offsets are approximated from longitude and are not engine readings. Only the Delhi table above is measured. Look up your own city on the AstroVedansh panchang before you leave for the ghat.

For the wider Kartika month, see our notes on Diwali 2026 and on Surya in worship and remedy.