Pithori Amavasya 2026: 10 September Date, Vrat and the 11 September Confusion
Popular calendars put Pithori Amavasya on 10 September 2026; our panchang shows Amavasya at sunrise on 11 September. Both are right. Darsha goes by the conjunction, Pithori by the evening puja, Kushotpatani by the morning, and udaya Amavasya by sunrise — here is each rule.
Search for Pithori Amavasya 2026 and most calendars hand you Thursday, 10 September. Open our panchang for that same Thursday and it shows Krishna Chaturdashi at sunrise, with Amavasya arriving only at 10:34 — and Amavasya at sunrise landing on Friday, 11 September. Readers write in assuming somebody has made an error. Nobody has. Three separate observances sit on this one lunation, and each is decided by a different rule about which part of the day the tithi must occupy.
The short answer
- Pithori Amavasya vrat and puja — Thursday, 10 September 2026, after sunset.
- Darsha Amavasya and its shraddha — Thursday, 10 September 2026, in the aparahna.
- Kushotpatani, the cutting of kush — Friday, 11 September 2026, between sunrise and 08:57.
- Udaya Amavasya — snan, daan and tarpan — Friday, 11 September 2026.
That is the whole disagreement, resolved. The rest of this article is why.
What the tithi actually does
For Delhi, Amavasya of Bhadrapada Krishna paksha begins on Thursday, 10 September 2026 at 10:34 and ends on Friday, 11 September 2026 at 08:57. Chaturdashi holds from 12:31 on 9 September until Amavasya opens. Sunrise is 06:04 on Thursday and 06:05 on Friday.
So the tithi covers the back half of Thursday, the whole of Thursday night, and not quite three hours of Friday morning. Every date below is a consequence of those two timestamps and nothing else.
The two days, hour by hour
| Moment (Delhi, IST) | Thu, 10 September 2026 | Fri, 11 September 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Sunrise | 06:04 — Krishna Chaturdashi | 06:05 — Amavasya |
| Amavasya tithi | begins 10:34 | ends 08:57 |
| Madhyahna | 11:03–13:32 — Amavasya | 11:03–13:32 — Pratipada |
| Aparahna | 13:32–16:02 — Amavasya | 13:32–16:01 — Pratipada |
| Sunset (evening puja) | 18:31 — Amavasya | 18:30 — Pratipada |
| Moonrise | 04:59 | 06:01 |
| Nakshatra | Magha (pada 3) | Purva Phalguni (pada 3) |
| Rahu kaal | 13:51–15:24 | 10:44–12:17 |
Magha, Thursday's nakshatra, has the Pitrs as its presiding deity — one reason this amavasya carries shraddha weight even before Pitru Paksha has begun.
Darsha Amavasya is fixed by the conjunction
Darsha names the moon's vanishing. The exact conjunction — the instant the moon and the sun share a longitude — is not a separate event from the tithi: it is the closing edge of Amavasya, here 08:57 on Friday morning. On Thursday the moon rises at 04:59, an hour ahead of the sun and already lost in the glare; on Friday it rises at 06:01, four minutes before sunrise, invisible outright.
Darsha shraddha — tarpan to the pitrs — is offered in the aparahna, the fourth of the five equal parts of the day. So the question becomes: inside the window carrying this conjunction, which day has an aparahna with Amavasya running? Thursday's aparahna is 13:32–16:02, and Amavasya has been in force since 10:34. Friday's aparahna is 13:32–16:01, by which time Shukla Pratipada has taken over. Only one day qualifies, and it is Thursday, 10 September.
Pithori is an evening vrat, so it takes the evening tithi
Pithori Amavasya is kept by mothers for the wellbeing and long life of their sons. The fast runs through the day and the puja is done after sunset. Sixty-four yoginis are shaped from pithi — flour dough, which is where the name comes from — set out on a chowki, worshipped, offered naivedya, and the vrat katha is heard before the fast is broken. In Maharashtra and Gujarat this is one of the year's carefully kept household vrats; in the Marathi countryside the same amavasya is Bail Pola, the bullocks' day.
Because the puja belongs to the evening, the tithi at sunset decides. Thursday's sunset is 18:31 with Amavasya running, and it holds all night. Friday's evening is already Pratipada. Pithori is therefore Thursday, 10 September 2026. This is the pattern we have set out before in why the same festival shows two dates — the observance chooses the day, not the calendar.
Kushotpatani asks for a morning
The same amavasya is Kushotpatani or Kushagrahani — the day kush (darbha) grass is gathered and stored for the year's rituals, above all for the shraddhas of Pitru Paksha, which begins on 27 September 2026. Kush is pulled by hand, root and all, in the morning.
Here the clock points the other way. Thursday morning is Chaturdashi; Amavasya has not opened. The only morning in this lunation with Amavasya genuinely running is Friday, 11 September, from sunrise 06:05 until 08:57. If you want the grass cut with the tithi present, that is your window. Many printed lists still carry Kushotpatani beside Pithori on Thursday, going by the day-label rather than the clock. If your family follows such a list, follow it — this is a difference of reckoning, not of merit.
Friday is the udaya Amavasya
Anything measured from sunrise belongs to Friday: the amavasya snan, daan of black sesame, cloth and food, a simple tarpan at home with water, til and darbha, and a lamp at dusk for the ancestors. We have written that day up separately in Amavasya on 11 September 2026. Note also that the Masik Shivratri fast, keyed to Chaturdashi at sunrise, sits on Thursday.
Bhadrapada or Shravana? Both
Our panchang labels this Bhadrapada Amavasya because it counts months purnimanta — Bhadrapada Krishna paksha began on 29 August, the day after Shravana Purnima. Our app feed labels the same date Shravana, because it counts amanta, and in that reckoning Shravana ends at this very Amavasya with Bhadrapada opening on 12 September. Neither label is a bug. It is why Maharashtra and Gujarat call this Shravan Amavasya while a North Indian panchang files it under Bhadrapada — and one more reason two search results can look like different festivals.
What the shastra does not explain
Why sixty-four yoginis and not another number, why the figures are of flour, why kush must be pulled on this particular amavasya — the texts prescribe the act and the time and give no reason beyond the prescription. We would rather leave that gap open than fill it. You will find pages claiming kush is antibacterial, or that a new moon exerts a measurable pull on the body; those are modern additions, not shastra, and the vrat does not rest on them.
Before you fix your date
All timings above are for Delhi, and sunrise shifts by city — 06:26 in Mumbai and Ahmedabad, 05:22 in Kolkata, 05:58 in Chennai. This year, though, nothing is borderline: Amavasya ends at 08:57 IST, comfortably after the latest Indian sunrise, so 11 September is the udaya Amavasya everywhere in the country, and Thursday's aparahna and evening are in Amavasya everywhere too. Where a case is tight, check your own city on our daily panchang and keep your family's practice above any printed list, ours included.