Dhanteras 2026: Date, Puja Vidhi and What to Buy
Dhanteras falls on Friday, 6 November 2026, on Krishna Trayodashi. The day began with Dhanvantari and with health, not with gold. The puja step by step, the Yama lamp at the door, what is traditionally bought and avoided, and sunset times for eight cities so you can find your own pradosh window.
Dhanteras falls on Friday, 6 November 2026. The tithi is Krishna Trayodashi, from which the older name Dhanatrayodashi comes — Kartik Krishna Trayodashi in north India's purnimanta reckoning, and the identical tithi named Ashwin Krishna Trayodashi in the amanta calendars of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra and Tamil Nadu. It begins about 10:30 IST Friday morning and runs to about 10:50 IST Saturday, so all of Friday evening sits inside it across India.
It opens what north India counts as five days, which this year do not fall one to a date. Saturday 7 November carries the Chaturdashi lamps, but the Narak Chaturdashi bath at dawn and Diwali itself both fall on Sunday 8 November, Amavasya beginning before that Sunday noon and holding through the evening. Govardhan Puja is Tuesday 10 November, Bhai Dooj Wednesday 11 November; in Maharashtra and parts of Gujarat the count begins a day earlier, with Govatsa Dwadashi.
From physician to metal
Dhanteras does not begin as a shopping day. It begins with Dhanvantari, who rises from the churning of the ocean holding a kalash — physician of the gods, bearer of amrit. Ayurveda is traced to him, and his appearance day is this Trayodashi. The day's shape is health, not gold.
Two things turned it toward metal. The first is that kalash: honouring him came to mean bringing a new pot home, and a pot meant metal. The second is the name — Dhanvantari's dhanv is not dhan meaning wealth, though they sound close enough that the nearness is often credited with pulling the day that way. That is a guess, not a recorded history. Lakshmi and Kubera did join the physician in the evening, and that much is old.
What came after is not. That Dhanteras obliges you to spend — that a shop's advertised window is a muhurat, that a bigger purchase buys a better year — is a marketing layer over a festival. Nothing in the tradition scales the blessing to the bill. A steel spoon bought with attention is the whole custom performed; borrowing to buy metal inverts the day.
What is bought, and what is avoided
Practice varies by region and household; what follows is mostly north Indian.
- A vessel — brass, copper, or in modern practice steel. The most common form of the purchase, and often said to be the oldest.
- Silver, usually a small coin or object.
- Gold, where a household can afford it, often as a token weight rather than an ornament.
- A new broom, treated across much of north India as Lakshmi entering the house. The cheapest purchase of the week, and among the most seriously meant.
- Dhania seeds, kept or sown after the puja in parts of north India and Bihar as a seed of increase.
Commonly avoided: iron, and in many homes glass and black objects; knives and scissors are not given as gifts. The iron of that rule is loha, plain iron — not stainless steel, which the tradition did not know and households now treat as ordinary vessel metal. A vessel bought today is filled at the threshold with water, rice or grain.
Yama Deepdaan: the lamp at the door
The rest of the evening is not about a purchase, though its story is the one most often cited to justify one. A prince is fated to die of snakebite on the fourth night of his marriage. His wife lets no one sleep: she heaps the household's ornaments at the doorway, lights lamps around them, and keeps everyone awake with song. Yama arrives as a serpent, is blinded by the light off the metal, and leaves at dawn empty-handed. Nothing is bought in the katha: the ornaments were already in the house, and what saves him is the lamps and the vigil.
From this comes Yama Deepdaan: an earthen lamp, traditionally of til oil, lit after sunset at the main door or facing south, as a gesture for the household's protection. It is not lit indoors, and not stepped over. Some families do it on Trayodashi evening, some on Chaturdashi — this year Friday and Saturday.
The puja itself
- Clean the house, the threshold especially, and draw the rangoli if that is your custom.
- After sunset, set a chowki with a clean cloth and place Dhanvantari, Lakshmi and Kubera. The item bought that day goes before them, washed and filled.
- Light the lamp and incense. Offer water, akshat, roli, flowers and a sweet naivedya.
- Say the mantras your family uses, or simply sit with the lamp. Attention is the offering.
- The Yama lamp is lit at the door itself, after the indoor puja — not lit inside and carried out.
Sunset, pradosh and your city
The puja is done in pradosh kaal, the stretch from sunset through the first part of the evening. Trayodashi runs through all of Friday evening, so what you need is your sunset. On 6 November, IST, to the nearest minute:
- Delhi — 17:33
- Mumbai — 18:03
- Kolkata — 16:56
- Chennai — 17:41
- Bengaluru — 17:52
- Hyderabad — 17:43
- Ahmedabad — 17:59
- Guwahati — 16:38
Roughly eighty minutes separate Ahmedabad from Guwahati, which is why no honest page prints one time for the country. Where a fixed lagna is preferred for the Lakshmi portion, Vrishabha is usual; a lagna rises by latitude as well as longitude, so even two cities on one meridian do not share it. For other cities, take your sunset from the daily panchang.
What people get wrong
- Treating an advertised buying window as scripture. Buying is not the puja.
- Doing the puja at midday because the evening is busy; it is a pradosh kaal observance.
- Lighting the Yama lamp indoors; it belongs at the door.
- Spending money the household does not have, on a day whose first deity was a physician.
If this year's purchase is large — property, a vehicle, gold past a token weight — and you want it timed against your own chart, book a consultation.