Diwali 2026 Five-Day Calendar: Dhanteras 6 November to Bhai Dooj 11 November, All Dates

2026-08-26

Diwali 2026 is Sunday, 8 November — even though Amavasya still holds the sunrise on 9 November. Here is the full run from Dhanteras on 6 November to Bhai Dooj on 11 November, with every tithi window from the panchang engine and the rules that decide each date.

Diwali 2026 falls on Sunday, 8 November. The run opens with Dhanteras on Friday, 6 November and closes with Bhai Dooj on Wednesday, 11 November. In between, the 2026 calendar does two things that break the usual rhythm, and both are worth knowing before you fix a puja time or book a train.

The five-day calendar at a glance

• Dhanteras — Friday, 6 November 2026
• Naraka Chaturdashi (Choti Diwali) — Sunday, 8 November 2026
• Diwali, Lakshmi Puja — Sunday, 8 November 2026
• Govardhan Puja (Annakut) — Tuesday, 10 November 2026
• Bhai Dooj — Wednesday, 11 November 2026

Five observances, four dates. Choti Diwali and Diwali share 8 November, and two days inside the run — 7 and 9 November — carry no observance at all. Anyone counting five consecutive days from Dhanteras will land Govardhan Puja on 9 November and Bhai Dooj on 10 November. Both would be a day early.

Every figure above is read directly from the AstroVedansh panchang engine for Delhi. Tithi moments are absolute; sunrise, sunset and Rahu Kaal are Delhi-specific. The month throughout is Kartika, Krishna Paksha until 9 November and Shukla Paksha from 10 November. Nakshatras run Hasta, Chitra, Swati, Swati, Vishakha, Anuradha across the six days.

Why every tithi this week is longer than a day

A tithi is not a day. It is the time the Moon needs to gain 12 degrees on the Sun, and that stretches or compresses with the Moon's speed. Through this particular week the Moon is moving slowly, so every tithi in the run is longer than 24 hours:

• Trayodashi — 24 hours 17 minutes
• Chaturdashi — 24 hours 40 minutes
• Amavasya — 25 hours 04 minutes
• Pratipada — 25 hours 29 minutes
• Dwitiya — 25 hours 53 minutes

A tithi longer than 24 hours must touch two sunrises. That is the entire arithmetic behind the annual "8 ya 9 November" argument, and it is why the confusion repeats at both ends of this week rather than only at Diwali. If the idea is new to you, our note on how tithi is measured is the place to start.

Why Diwali is 8 November, and what the 9 November listing means

Amavasya begins at 11:28:29 on 8 November and ends at 12:32:14 on 9 November. Split by the clock it is almost a dead heat — 12 hours 32 minutes of it fall on the 9th against 12 hours 31 minutes on the 8th — and the 9th is the day that holds the sunrise. On a naive count, 9 November looks like the stronger claim.

But Lakshmi Puja is not decided by sunrise or by hour count. It is pradosh-vyapini: the deciding question is whether Amavasya is standing during pradosh, the stretch of evening that begins at sunset. On 8 November, Delhi's sunset is 17:30 and Amavasya has been running for six hours. On 9 November, Amavasya has already ended at 12:32 — nearly five hours before sunset at 17:29. Only one evening in 2026 carries Amavasya at pradosh, and that is 8 November. There is no genuine ambiguity here; the calendars agree.

So what is the panchang app showing you on 9 November? It is not wrong. 9 November is the day Amavasya prevails at sunrise, and the observances that follow sunrise — the Kartik Amavasya snan, daan and tarpan many families keep — go by that day. Two rules, two days, one tithi. Lakshmi Puja follows pradosh; snan and daan follow sunrise. 9 November is a Monday, which makes that sunrise Amavasya a Somvati Amavasya.

Choti Diwali and Diwali on the same day

The abhyanga snan of Naraka Chaturdashi is not an evening rite. It belongs to arunodaya — the last stretch of darkness before sunrise — with Chaturdashi running. Chaturdashi holds from 7 November 10:48:39 to 8 November 11:28:29. On the pre-dawn of 7 November, Trayodashi is still in force. On the pre-dawn of 8 November, Chaturdashi is in force and runs on well past sunrise, until 11:28:29.

So the oil bath is on the morning of 8 November, and the Lakshmi Puja is on the evening of the same date. In practice: abhyanga snan before sunrise, the Yama-deepa at dusk, Lakshmi Puja at pradosh, all on Sunday 8 November. Our fuller Diwali 2026 Lakshmi Puja vidhi and muhurat guide covers the puja sequence itself.

Dhanteras on 6 November, and the oddity in the table

Look again at the 6 November row. The tithi at sunrise is Krishna Dwadashi, not Trayodashi — Trayodashi only begins at 10:31:27 that morning. Dhanteras is 6 November anyway, for exactly the same reason Diwali is 8 November: Dhanteras is judged at pradosh, not at sunrise. On the evening of 6 November, Trayodashi is running. On the evening of 7 November it is long gone, having ended at 10:48 that morning. One pradosh, one date.

This is worth pointing out because it is the clearest demonstration that the sunrise tithi in a calendar grid does not, by itself, tell you which festival falls on which day.

Govardhan Puja is not the day after Diwali in 2026

Govardhan Puja and Annakut are kept in pratah kaal, the first part of the day, on Shukla Pratipada. Pratipada begins at 12:32:14 on 9 November — after that morning has passed. The next morning, 10 November, opens with Pratipada already in force and holds it until 14:01. Govardhan Puja is therefore Tuesday, 10 November, two days after Diwali rather than one.

This is the single most likely error in a hand-made 2026 calendar, and it follows directly from the long Amavasya described above. A tithi that overruns its day pushes the next tithi's morning out by a full date.

Bhai Dooj on 11 November, and an honest note on Rahu Kaal

The Bhai Dooj tilak is aparahna-vyapini — it belongs to the afternoon segment of the day. Dwitiya runs from 10 November 14:01:01 to 11 November 15:54:28. On 10 November the aparahna is over before Dwitiya even begins. On 11 November, Dwitiya covers the aparahna completely and continues past it. Bhai Dooj is Wednesday, 11 November.

One complication deserves stating plainly rather than hiding. Rahu Kaal on 11 November runs 12:05–13:25, and that sits inside the aparahna window (roughly 11:00 to 13:09, derived below). The classical rule for the tilak names aparahna and says nothing at all about Rahu Kaal; these are two separate systems and the older texts do not rank one above the other. If your family avoids Rahu Kaal, 11:00 to 12:05 is inside aparahna and clear of it. If your family does not, the tilak is valid across the aparahna as it stands. Check Rahu Kaal for your own city, since it shifts with local sunrise.

Derived windows for each rite

These five windows are not read from the panchang engine. Only the sunrise and sunset behind them are; the windows themselves are calculated from those by applying the standard divisions, so treat them as derived rather than measured. Your own panchang may differ by five to ten minutes. Many panchangs also narrow the Lakshmi Puja further to the sthir lagna of Vrishabha inside pradosh — our engine does not publish lagna times, so for that narrower muhurat, check your own panchang.

What the tradition does not explain

The nibandhas assign each rite a part of the day — pradosh for Dhanteras and Lakshmi Puja, arunodaya for the abhyanga snan, pratah kaal for Annakut, aparahna for the Bhai Dooj tilak — and they are strikingly consistent about it across regions and centuries. What they do not do is say why. There is no shastric argument that the evening is astronomically better suited to Lakshmi Puja, and no old text offers a physical mechanism. The honest position is that the timing is prescribed, well attested, and unexplained.

The same applies to the modern claims that diya smoke clears post-monsoon insects or that firecrackers began as a hygiene measure. Those are recent additions and are not in the sources. The tithi arithmetic on this page can be checked against any ephemeris; those claims cannot be checked against anything.

Times are for Delhi — what changes in your city

Tithi boundaries are absolute. Amavasya begins at 11:28:29 on 8 November everywhere in India, and ends at 12:32:14 on 9 November everywhere in India. Sunrise, sunset and moonrise are not absolute, and every window in the second table above is built on them.

Delhi's sunset on 8 November is 17:30. As a rough guide only — this is an estimate from longitude, not an engine reading — Kolkata's is around 35 to 40 minutes earlier and Ahmedabad's around 25 to 30 minutes later, and the pradosh window shifts with them. Because Amavasya on 8 November begins before noon and runs well past midnight, no Indian city loses that evening, so the date holds nationwide. The muhurat does not. Pull your city's sunrise, sunset and Rahu Kaal from the daily panchang before you settle a time.

One last detail from the data, easy to miss: on 8 November the Moon rises at 05:36 and sets at 16:39, fifty-one minutes before the Sun. Diwali night is genuinely moonless. The lamp is not competing with anything.