Kartik Purnima 2026: 24 November, Dev Diwali, Snan-Daan and Deepdaan

2026-08-26

Kartik Purnima 2026 falls on Tuesday, 24 November — Purnima runs 11:42 pm on 23 Nov to 8:23 pm on 24 Nov in Delhi. Why the snan and the deepdaan both sit on the same day this year, the Tripurasura katha behind Dev Diwali, and what the texts actually claim.

Kartik Purnima 2026 falls on Tuesday, 24 November. It is the full moon that closes the month of Kartik, the night Kashi turns its ghats into a stairway of lamps, and the day on which a month of pre-dawn bathing is finally set down.

Kartik Purnima 2026: the exact tithi window

The Purnima tithi begins at 11:42 pm on Monday, 23 November 2026 and ends at 8:23 pm on Tuesday, 24 November 2026. All times here are for Delhi (IST). Sunrise, sunset and moonrise shift by city, so check a local panchang before fixing a clock time for yourself.

A vrat day is normally decided by the tithi standing at sunrise. Purnima is standing at sunrise on 24 November — it opened just over seven hours earlier — so the snan, the daan, the vrat and the deepdaan all belong to 24 November. There is no split this year.

Panchang for 24 November 2026

Tithi, nakshatra, yoga, sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset and Rahu Kaal are read directly from the AstroVedansh panchang engine for Delhi. The pradosh window is not an engine value — it is derived from the engine's sunset and is approximate. The moonset shown is the engine's entry for the 24 November calendar day, which is the setting of the moon that rose on the evening of 23 November. Sunrise, sunset and moonrise differ by city.

Why some years split this festival, and why 2026 does not

Kartik Purnima is one of the few observances that asks for the tithi twice in one day. The snan and the daan want Purnima at sunrise. The deepdaan wants Purnima in the evening, at pradosh, when the lamps go down to the water. In years when Purnima begins late on one night and expires by mid-afternoon the next, those two halves land on different dates and the almanacs disagree in public.

2026 is clean. On the evening of 23 November the tithi is still Chaturdashi — Purnima only opens at 11:42 pm, long after lamps would have been lit. On the evening of 24 November Purnima is still running: sunset is at 5:23 pm and the tithi holds until 8:23 pm. Both windows sit on the same day.

There is a small pleasure in this year's numbers. The moon rises at 4:56 pm, twenty-seven minutes before the sun sets. The full moon is already above the horizon when the first diya reaches the river.

Tripurari Purnima and the Tripurasura katha

The older name for this day is Tripurari Purnima, and it belongs to Shiva rather than to Vishnu.

The katha, carried in the Shiva Purana and in the Tripura-dahana passages of the Matsya Purana, runs like this. Three asura brothers — Tarakaksha, Vidyunmali and Kamalaksha, sons of Tarakasura — performed severe austerity and were granted three moving fortresses: one of gold, one of silver, one of iron, travelling through sky, air and earth. The boon carried its own condition. The three could be destroyed only by a single arrow, and only in the one instant when all three fell into a line. Shiva waited for that instant and loosed the arrow. From that day he is Tripurari, the enemy of the three cities.

Two honest notes. The Puranas are not uniform about which tithi the burning falls on; the attachment of the Tripura-dahana to Kartik Purnima is strong in practice but not identical across texts. And the story is a story — it gives the day its name and its mood, not a chronicle.

Why Kashi lights its ghats

Kashi calls this night Dev Diwali, the Diwali of the gods. The local reasoning is direct: when Shiva destroyed Tripura, the devas came down to Kashi to celebrate, and the city lit lamps to receive them. Diwali belongs to people; sixteen days later, this one belongs to the visitors.

What happens is that every ghat from Ravidas to Adi Keshav is lined with earthen lamps at dusk, and the river carries thousands more. Two things are worth separating here. The deepdaan at Kashi on Kartik Purnima is old and textually grounded. The city-wide, ghat-by-ghat spectacle at its present scale is recent — it grew outward from the lighting at Panchganga Ghat and expanded within living memory into the event that fills the news each year. Both are real. Only one of them is ancient.

Ganga snan and the merit of Kartik snan

Kartik snan is a month-long vrat, not a single morning. It is taken from Sharad Purnima — 25 October 2026 this year — and kept daily until Kartik Purnima: a bath before sunrise at a river or tank, followed by a lamp and a short recitation. Kartik Purnima is the day it is completed, and the day the largest number of people bathe.

If no river is within reach, the tradition does not treat that as failure. A bath at home before sunrise, with a little Ganga jal added to the water, is the accepted substitute and is named as such in the vrat manuals. The Kartik vrat was never written on the assumption that everyone lives near a tirtha.

The Kartika Mahatmya sections of the Skanda Purana and the Padma Purana are lavish about the merit of this bath, and Kartik Purnima carries the heaviest weight in the month. What those texts do not do is explain a mechanism. They assert the merit; they do not argue for it. We should be equally plain: there is no shastric claim that a cold river bath in late November is medically beneficial, and anyone inventing one on the tradition's behalf is not quoting it.

Daan and deepdaan: the two halves of the day

The daan named for this day is unusually specific and unusually modest. What the texts list is food — grain, ghee, sesame, and a blanket against the cold that is arriving — along with the gift of a lamp. Gold and silver appear in later lists; they are not the point. The traditional order is snan first, then daan, then the vrat's conclusion, and the daan is meant for that same morning rather than deferred.

Deepdaan is the evening half. A lamp of kneaded flour or clay, a cotton wick, ghee or til oil, floated at a river or tank — or set at a tulsi plant or a doorway where there is no water. The traditional counts are eleven, twenty-one or one hundred and eight lamps, and a single lamp offered with attention is not treated as lesser.

Timing on 24 November: begin at pradosh, from roughly 5:23 pm, and finish before 8:23 pm when the tithi ends. Keep the day's puja out of Rahu Kaal, which in Delhi is 2:45 pm to 4:04 pm — you can check the Rahu Kaal window for your own city rather than borrowing Delhi's.

Guru Nanak Jayanti on the same day

Kartik Purnima is also Guru Nanak Jayanti, the Prakash Parv of Guru Nanak Dev ji, so 24 November 2026 carries both observances. In gurdwaras an Akhand Path is completed that morning, Prabhat Pheris run in the days before, and langar continues through the day.

One point of accuracy: the Sikh calendar fixes this date by its own reckoning, so the announced date for the Prakash Parv is best taken from a local gurdwara or the SGPC calendar rather than inferred from a Hindu panchang. The two agree on Kartik Purnima in 2026. That agreement is not automatic every year.

The Kartik month in 2026, start to finish

The vrat is closed on this day rather than merely abandoned. Those who kept the full month conclude with the last snan, a deepdaan and a daan of food, and where the family follows the practice, an udyapan — giving away the lamp and the vessel used through the month. Those who kept only part of it are not asked for anything more elaborate.

Dates, tithi timings and the masa change on 27 October are read from the panchang engine for Delhi, as are the festival names. The "Kartik snan begins / ends" notes are the traditional convention, not engine output.

What we can say and what we cannot

The date is arithmetic and it is firm: Purnima from 11:42 pm on 23 November to 8:23 pm on 24 November, with the observance on the 24th. Positions are computed. They are not opinions.

The rest is tradition and deserves to be described as tradition. The Puranas say Kartik snan carries great merit and do not say why. The ghats at Kashi are lit because the city decided, over a long time, that this is how it receives the devas. Neither needs a scientific varnish, and adding one only makes the account less trustworthy. Keep the bath, the lamp and the daan, take the date from the panchang, and leave the explanations where the texts left them.

You can pull the full panchang for 24 November for your own city. If you are still working through the month, our notes on Diwali 2026 on 8 November and on how a Purnima day gets fixed cover the reasoning in more detail.