Durga Ashtami

The Shukla paksha Ashtami of every lunar month is kept as Masik Durgashtami. In Chaitra and Ashwin it falls inside Navratri and becomes Maha Ashtami, the high point of the nine nights. Devi is worshipped in her Durga form with red flowers and a red chunri, and the day is completed with kanya pujan rather than with the aarti.

Next date: 2026-09-19

Deity: Devi

vidhi

Bathe at sunrise, wear clean red or yellow clothes, and take the sankalp before Durga.,Set the chowki with a red cloth, place the murti or picture, and establish the kalash with water, mango leaves and a coconut wrapped in a red chunri.,Offer red flowers — hibiscus above all — with sindoor, kumkum, akshat, haldi, dhoop and a ghee lamp.,Chant Om Dum Durgayai Namah one hundred and eight times, and read the Durga Saptashati, or the Durga Chalisa if the Saptashati is not familiar.,Offer the bhog — halwa, puri and black chana are the traditional set — and do the aarti with camphor.,Do the kanya pujan: invite nine young girls and one young boy, wash their feet, apply tilak, tie a kalava, feed them the bhog and give a small dakshina before they leave.,Break your own fast only after the kanyas have eaten and been seen to the door.

katha

Mahishasura, the buffalo asura, had won a boon that no man and no god could kill him, and with it he took the heavens and drove the devas out. Having no answer of their own, they went to Brahma, Vishnu and Shiv, and from the gathered light and anger of all the gods a form took shape — a woman, too bright to look at directly, made of the shakti that had always been in each of them. Every god gave her his own weapon: Shiv his trishul, Vishnu his chakra, Indra his vajra, Varuna his conch, Agni his spear; Himavan gave her a lion to ride. She laughed once, and the mountains moved. The war with Mahishasura ran nine nights, and he changed his shape through all of it — buffalo, lion, elephant, man — until on the last night she held him down with her foot and pierced him with the trishul. That is why the nine nights are Navratri and the tenth day is Vijayadashami. Ashtami is the day of the hardest of that fighting, which is why the tithi is kept every month and not only inside Navratri. The reason the katha is recited at all is the boon Devi gives at the close of the Saptashati: that wherever her story is told with faith, she does not stay away.

mantra

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samagri

A red chunri, a red cloth for the chowki, and a Durga murti or picture,Red flowers, hibiscus preferred, with akshat, sindoor, kumkum, haldi and kalava,Kalash with water, mango leaves, a coconut and a little Gangajal,Ghee lamp with a cotton wick, dhoop and camphor for the aarti,Halwa, puri, black chana and fruit for the bhog,A copy of the Durga Saptashati, or of the Durga Chalisa

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