Vighnaraja Sankashti 2026: 29 September, Not 30 — Angarki Again
Our panchang keeps Vighnaraja Sankashti on Tuesday, 29 September 2026 — the day whose moonrise (7:39 pm in Delhi) falls inside Chaturthi — even though the udaya column reads 30. And it is Angarki again, the second in a row after 1 September.
Sankashti Chaturthi is the one vrat of the Hindu month that does not end with the sun. The fast runs through the day, the puja waits for dusk, and nothing concludes until the moon has risen and the arghya has been poured. In 2026 the Vighnaraja Sankashti falls on Tuesday, 29 September — and it is Angarki again, the second Tuesday Sankashti in a row after 1 September. Both halves need defending: many calendars' udaya-tithi column will carry 30 September, and back-to-back Angarki sounds like a misprint. Neither is an error. Here is the working.
Vighnaraja Sankashti 2026: the date, verified
For Delhi, our panchang gives the tithi as:
- Krishna Tritiya — runs until 5:10 pm on Tuesday, 29 September
- Chaturthi begins — 29 September 2026 at 5:10 pm
- Chaturthi ends — Wednesday, 30 September 2026 at 2:55 pm
And the moon:
- Moonrise in Delhi, 29 September — 7:39 pm, about two and a half hours into Chaturthi
- Moonrise in Delhi, 30 September — 8:25 pm, five and a half hours after Chaturthi has ended
Sankashti is a chandrodaya-vyapini vrat: it belongs to the day whose moonrise falls inside Chaturthi, whatever the sunrise column says. Only one evening qualifies this month, and it is Tuesday, 29 September 2026.
A naming note: by purnimanta reckoning this is Ashwin Krishna Chaturthi; amanta calendars — Maharashtra, Gujarat — call the same fortnight Bhadrapada Krishna. The label on the month differs; the day and the vrat do not.
Why many calendars will print 30 September
At sunrise on the 29th the running tithi is Tritiya. At sunrise on the 30th it is Chaturthi. A calendar column built on the udaya rule — the tithi in force at daybreak owns the day — will therefore print 30 September, and for daylight observances that rule is exactly right.
But Sankashti's entire structure points at the moon. The fast is kept for the moonrise, the arghya is the hinge of the vrat, and the paran is unlocked by it. Follow the printed 30th: you fast through Wednesday, and when the moon rises at 8:25 pm you are pouring arghya on a tithi that expired at 2:55 in the afternoon — a Panchami-side moon for a Chaturthi vrat. Keep Tuesday instead, and the moon comes up with Chaturthi comfortably in force. This is the same method, and the same 29-versus-30 shape, that our 1 September Angarki article walked through — the reasoning has not changed in four weeks.
Angarki again: the second Tuesday in a row
Count the days. 1 September was a Tuesday; 29 September is exactly 28 days later — four weeks to the day, Tuesday again. A Sankashti falling on Tuesday is Angarki Sankashti, the most prized of the year's twelve or thirteen — and 2026 has now produced two in a row.
It looks like a clerical slip, because a lunar month is not 28 days long. From one Chaturthi to the next the moon takes about 29½ days — the synodic month — so the tithi drifts a day and a half forward each round, and the weekday normally moves on by one or two. What held it still is the moonrise rule itself. The Chaturthi window spans parts of two civil days, and the vrat goes to whichever of them owns the moonrise. In August that was the second day of the window; this month Chaturthi begins at 5:10 pm and holds that very evening's moon, so the vrat takes the first. The day and a half the tithi gained, the rule gave back — and the count between vrat days comes out at exactly four weeks. Uncommon, entirely lawful, and this year the calendar simply deals it.
Why Angarki matters
Angaraka is a name of Mangal — Mars, the Bhauma of the shastra, son of Bhumi, the earth — which is why a Tuesday Sankashti is also called Bhauma Chaturthi. The katha runs that Angaraka performed long tapasya to Ganesha, and that Ganesha, pleased, granted a conjunction as the boon: a Chaturthi falling on his weekday would carry his name, and a vrat kept on it would bear the fruit of a full year of sankashtis.
As with every katha we print, that is tradition speaking — it lives in the Ganesha-purana line of telling and in vrat-katha collections, and we will not dress it up as a citation. What can be reported plainly is what tradition does with it: Angarki draws the largest Sankashti crowds of the year, nowhere more than in Maharashtra, where the queues at Siddhivinayak and the Ashtavinayak shrines run through the night. And we will not turn the blessing into a threat: nothing goes wrong for anyone keeping an ordinary Sankashti. Angarki is a bonus, never a penalty.
Vighnaraja, the form of this Chaturthi
Each Sankashti of the year honors Ganesha under a particular name, and the Ashwin Krishna Chaturthi belongs to Vighnaraja — not merely the remover of obstacles but their king — the one who decides where a vighna may and may not stand.
The katha attached to the name comes from the Mudgala-purana tradition, which describes eight forms of Ganesha, each subduing one distortion of the mind. Vighnaraja's opponent is Mamatasura, the demon of mamata — "mine-ness", the clutch of possession — born, the telling goes, of a careless moment of Parvati's. Vighnaraja, mounted on Shesha, subdues him. The story's point is not the battle: the obstacle this form conquers is attachment itself, the grip that turns every change into a loss. A fast named for Vighnaraja is traditionally read as a fast against exactly that. The eight-forms scheme is genuinely Mudgala-purana; the details vary by telling, and we would rather say so than pretend to a settled verse.
Moonrise in your city: 7:39 pm is a Delhi number
The moonrise of 7:39 pm is exact for Delhi and slightly wrong everywhere else. Moonrise is the most local number in the panchang: across the breadth of India it shifts by roughly 15 to 40 minutes — east earlier, west later. Kolkata sees its moon well before Delhi; Mumbai, appreciably after. We would rather not print a table of guesses — check the exact moonrise for your own city on our tithi and timings page before you set out the arghya thali.
What does not change with the city is the vrat day. Chaturthi runs from 5:10 pm on the 29th to 2:55 pm on the 30th, and every Indian city's moonrise on the 29th falls inside that window with hours to spare. Wherever you are, the fast is Tuesday; only the minute of your moon moves.
The vrat vidhi
Sankashti's day has a simple architecture — fast by day, Ganesha at dusk, moon at night.
- Bathe in the morning and take the sankalp, naming the vrat: Vighnaraja Sankashti, and this year Angarki with it.
- Fast through the day. Some keep nirjala until moonrise; most keep phalahar — fruit, milk, sabudana. Family custom governs here, and both count as the vrat.
- After sunset, do the main Ganesha puja: the murti on a chowki, twenty-one blades of durva, red flowers if you can get them — it is Mangal's day — dhoop, deep, and a naivedya of modak or laddu.
- At moonrise — 7:39 pm in Delhi — offer arghya to Chandrama: water poured from a lota, usually with akshat and flowers, many houses adding a little milk. Face the moon as you pour.
- Then break the fast — the paran — with the naivedya. The arghya, not the clock, is what opens it.
If the sky is clouded, the tradition does not strand you: offer the arghya at your city's moonrise time, facing where the moon stands behind the cloud. It has risen whether or not the haze lets you see it. Rahu kaal governs the launching of new undertakings, not a vrat kept on its own tithi — the evening puja and arghya are untouched by it. If you are starting something else that day, check rahu kaal separately.
One moon, two opposite rules
A confusion worth clearing while we are at it. On Ganesh Chaturthi — the Shukla Chaturthi, 14 September this year — tradition says not to look at the moon, on account of the mithya-kalank, the false blame the Syamantaka katha illustrates. On Sankashti, the Krishna Chaturthi, the moon is the whole point: you wait for it, look straight at it, and pour it an offering. Same deity, same tithi number, opposite paksha, opposite rule. Nobody sighting the moon on 29 September is breaking anything — the sighting is the vrat's completion.
After the visarjan, the first Sankashti
This Sankashti arrives four days after the season's farewell. Anant Chaturdashi on 25 September took the murtis to the water and closed the ten days of Ganeshotsav; the 29th reopens the ordinary monthly conversation with the same deity — loudly, with an Angarki. For anyone whose house went quiet on the 26th, Tuesday is the calendar's answer: the visarjan ended the festival, not the relationship.