Sharad Navratri 2026: Date, Ghatasthapana Muhurat & Vidhi

When Is Sharad Navratri 2026?

Sharad Navratri 2026 begins on Sunday, 11 October, with the Ghatasthapana on the Pratipada of Ashwina Shukla Paksha, and closes with Vijayadashami on Tuesday, 20 October.

This is the autumn Navratri, the one Gujarat keeps with garba. It follows immediately on Pitru Paksha, which ends on 10 October, so the shraddha fortnight closes one evening and the festival opens the next morning.

Two points in this year’s calendar need reading before you plan, and both are dealt with below: the date Ashtami and Navami share, and the nakshatra that panchang apps flag on the Ghatasthapana morning.

Navratri 2026 Ghatasthapana Muhurat in Surat

One distinction in that table matters. The tithi, the nakshatra and the yoga each turn at a single astronomical moment, so those times read the same across the country. The muhurat windows are worked out against your own sunrise and midday, so they shift from city to city. The figures above are the published Surat timings, so outside Surat and the surrounding towns, use a panchang set to your own location.

Both Chitra Nakshatra and Vaidhriti Yoga run across the whole of the 11th, so they cover the Ghatasthapana window. That does not disqualify it, and the section below explains why.

Most households use the morning window, and at nearly four hours it is generous this year. The Abhijit Muhurat at midday is the recognised fallback. The guide on choosing a shubh muhurat explains how windows of this kind are arrived at.

One thing not to do is pick the Ghatasthapana time off a Choghadiya chart. The scriptures do not advise Choghadiya for this. The window above is the answer.

Why Ghatasthapana Falls on 11 October and Not the 10th

Anyone checking a panchang on Saturday night will see Pratipada already running, since it begins at 09:19 PM on 10 October. That does not make Saturday the day. Amavasya prevails through the daytime of the 10th, and Amavasya is explicitly ruled out for establishing the ghat. Pratipada then arrives after dark, and night is ruled out too.

Sunday morning is the first stretch of time that satisfies everything. Pratipada is running, it is daytime, it is before Hindu midday, and it falls inside sixteen ghatis of sunrise. By Sunday evening the tithi is gone, ending at 09:30 PM, so it never reaches Monday’s sunrise. Exactly one morning in 2026 can carry the Ghatasthapana.

Is Ghatasthapana Prohibited During Chitra Nakshatra in 2026?

This is the point that will send families to a phone this year. Chitra Nakshatra runs from 09:42 PM on the 10th to 10:32 PM on the 11th, and Vaidhriti Yoga from 10:02 PM on the 10th to 09:05 PM on the 11th. Both cover the entire Ghatasthapana window, morning and Abhijit alike. Several panchang summaries print a line saying the muhurat falls during prohibited Chitra Nakshatra and prohibited Vaidhriti Yoga, and that word does a great deal of damage.

The rule is milder than the word suggests. Chitra Nakshatra and Vaidhriti Yoga are advised to be avoided during Ghatasthapana, but they do not disqualify it. What governs the decision is that the Ghatasthapana is performed before Hindu midday while Pratipada is prevailing, and on 11 October that condition is comfortably met across nearly four hours.

Nor is this a choice between a better option and a worse one. Chitra and Vaidhriti cover the whole of the 11th, so there is no Chitra-free morning to shift into, and Pratipada touches no other daytime, so there is no other date to move to. If the advisory were a bar, Ghatasthapana could not be performed at all in 2026. It is not a bar.

The timings that genuinely rule out a Ghatasthapana are a different list, and none apply on Sunday morning. They are Amavasya, night time, the afternoon, and any time beyond sixteen ghatis after sunrise.

Why Durga Ashtami and Maha Navami Share 19 October

The second unusual feature of 2026 sits at the close of the fortnight. Saptami occupies two calendar dates, 17 and 18 October, and Durga Ashtami and Maha Navami are both kept on Monday, 19 October, with Vijayadashami on Tuesday the 20th. The reason is not the one most people assume.

This is not a mistake in anyone’s calendar. The nine nights are counted in tithis, not English dates. A tithi is the time the moon takes to gain twelve degrees on the sun, and because the moon’s speed varies, tithis run longer and shorter than a calendar day. Saptami is running at sunrise on both 17 and 18 October. Ashtami then ends at 10:51 AM on the 19th, and Navami runs until 12:50 PM on the 20th, when Dashami begins. Because Vijayadashami is read in the afternoon of the 20th, the Navami puja is kept back to the 19th, alongside Ashtami.

Plan for the consequences. The Ashtami puja, the Navami puja and the Kanya Pujan all fall on the same Monday. Households that normally spread these over two days will run them in sequence, and the havan bookings that would usually fall across two dates land largely on one. If you want the Ashtami havan this year, ask early.

The Nine Days and the Nine Forms of Durga

Each night is kept for one of the nine forms of Devi, in a fixed order that follows the tithis rather than the calendar.

Day one is Sunday 11 October. Saptami covers both 17 and 18 October, and Ashtami and Navami are together on the 19th. For the days in between, read the dates off a panchang set to your own city rather than counting forward on a wall calendar, because that count drifts wherever a tithi spills.

The 18th is not an empty day, incidentally. Drik places Saraswati Avahan on 16 October and Saraswati Puja on the 17th, with Saraswati Balidan on the 18th and Visarjan on the 19th. This sequence is kept more fully in Bengal and the south than in Gujarat, which is why it passes quietly here.

That drift is why the panchangs part company this year over which form belongs to which date. Drik Panchang’s 2026 list for Surat names Kalaratri on the 17th, leaves the repeated Saptami on the 18th without a form, and puts Mahagauri Puja on the 19th alongside Durga Ashtami and Maha Navami. Other panchangs count the dates straight through and place Mahagauri on the 18th and Siddhidatri on the 19th. Both are worked correctly under their own rules, so follow the panchang your household already uses and do not switch mid fortnight. The daily puja itself changes very little. The form of Devi named in the sankalp changes, but the routine stays the same.

Ghatasthapana Vidhi

Ghatasthapana is the establishment of the ghat, a pot filled with water in which Devi is invoked for the nine nights, and everything else in the observance follows from it. Most families perform it themselves. A pandit is called where the fuller vidhi with sankalp is wanted, where the ghat is established for the first time, or where a havan is planned.

Prepare the space and the samagri the previous evening. The window opens at 06:33 AM, and the puja should not begin with someone still returning from the market.

1. Bathe, wear clean clothes, and clean the puja space. Many households keep the north east corner for the ghat.
2. Spread clean soil in a wide earthen pot and sow the barley seeds, watering them lightly. This is the jowara that will be green by Navami.
3. Take the sankalp, stating your name and gotra, the observance being undertaken, and how long the ghat will be kept.
4. Place the kalash on the soil bed. Fill it with clean water, add gangajal, supari, a coin, akshat and durva, tie moli around the neck, set mango or ashoka leaves in the mouth and top it with a coconut wrapped in red cloth.
5. Invoke Devi in the ghat with the mantras your family practice uses, and place the murti or image of Maa Durga beside it.
6. Light the akhand jyot where the household keeps one, in a lamp large enough to burn without constant refilling, and set a ghee lamp to Devi’s right and an oil lamp to her left.
7. Offer chandan, kumkum, akshat, red flowers, a chunari, bangles and the sixteen shringar articles.
8. Offer the naivedya, light the dhoop, perform the aarti, and read the Durga Saptashati, the Durga Chalisa or the paath your household keeps.
9. Repeat the puja and aarti morning and evening for the nine nights, watering the jowara and keeping the jyot alight.

Finish inside the muhurat window. If Sunday morning is impossible, the Abhijit Muhurat is the recognised alternative, and at 47 minutes it leaves no room to improvise.

Navratri Puja Samagri

• Earthen pot with clean soil, and barley seeds for the jowara
• Kalash of clay or copper, with gangajal, a coin, supari, akshat and durva
• Mango or ashoka leaves, a whole coconut and red cloth to wrap it
• Murti or framed image of Maa Durga
• Chunari, bangles, and the sixteen shringar articles where your family offers them
• Chandan, kumkum, haldi, akshat, abir and moli
• Red flowers and a garland, replaced each morning
• Akhand jyot lamp, ghee or oil in quantity, and cotton wicks
• Deep, dhoop, camphor and a matchbox
• Fruit, sweets and the naivedya prepared for each day
• Durga Saptashati or Durga Chalisa, printed or in your family’s book
• Havan samagri where a havan is planned
• Supari, paan leaves, dakshina and items for the daan

Buy the ghee for the akhand jyot generously. Running out on day six is the most common mishap of the fortnight.

Fasting Through Navratri

Fasting practice varies more in Navratri than in most observances.

Some families fast on all nine days. Some keep only the first and the last, or the first along with Ashtami and Navami. Many keep farali food through the fortnight, on fruit, milk, curd, sabudana, moraiyo, and rajgira or shingoda flour, with sendha namak in place of table salt and no grain, onion or garlic. Others keep one satvik meal a day without fasting further.

None of these is a lesser version of the others. The sankalp fixes what the household is undertaking, so settle the form before 11 October rather than partway through. If health, medication, pregnancy or work make a full fast unwise, keep the lighter form and keep it properly. The observance rests on the ghat, the jyot and the daily puja, not on the severity of the fast. The parana is taken on the day the household ends its observance, most often after the Navami puja or Kanya Pujan.

Durga Ashtami, Maha Navami and Sandhi Puja

Both fall on Monday, 19 October 2026.

Durga Ashtami, also called Maha Ashtami, is the day of Mahagauri and the one most households treat as the peak of the fortnight. Where a havan is held, this is usually the date for it. Maha Navami follows as the day of Siddhidatri, and where a family keeps the havan and purnahuti on Navami instead, that too is on the 19th this year.

Sandhi Puja sits at the join between the two, performed across the moment Ashtami passes into Navami, and it is the most precisely timed act of the fortnight. It runs for two ghatis, the last twenty four minutes of Ashtami and the first twenty four of Navami, which in 2026 is 10:27 AM to 11:15 AM on Monday 19 October. That window is the same everywhere in India, because it is set by the tithi rather than by your sunrise. It is most closely associated with Bengali Durga Puja, where it is kept at the pandal with a hundred and eight lamps, and it is not a routine part of most Gujarati household observance.

Monday the 19th is a full day. A household keeping the havan, the Kanya Pujan and, where it observes one, the Sandhi Puja should fix the order in advance and start early.

Kanya Pujan

Kanya Pujan, also called Kanjak, is the worship of young girls as embodiments of Devi, and for many families it is the emotional centre of Navratri.

Nine girls are traditionally invited, and in many households one boy is invited with them. The family washes their feet, applies tilak, ties moli, offers the meal, in many households puri, chana and halwa, gives a small gift and dakshina, and takes their blessing. The girls are usually between two and ten, though the number and the ages considered suitable vary by household.

Some families keep Kanya Pujan on Ashtami and some on Navami. In most years that is a real decision. In 2026 it is not, because both fall on Monday, 19 October. One practical point follows. If you invite girls from other families, ask them well before the day, because the same children are being asked by everyone in the neighbourhood on the same date.

The Tenth Day, Vijayadashami

Sharad Navratri closes with Vijayadashami on Tuesday, 20 October 2026, which carries the Navratri parana and the Durga visarjan on the same date. It is an afternoon festival rather than a morning one, so a household finishing the nine nights should not assume the tenth day works like the nine before it.

The Vijay Muhurat, the wider Aparahna window, Shami puja, Ayudha puja and the reason some calendars show Wednesday the 21st are all covered in the guide to Vijayadashami 2026.

Navratri in Surat and Gujarat

Gujarat keeps Navratri as garba, and Surat runs on a different clock for nine nights. Societies, grounds and streets fill after dark, the raas and garba run late, and much of the city sleeps through the mornings after. Two things follow.

The first is scheduling. The Ghatasthapana window on the 11th closes at 10:28 AM, and the household puja every morning after has to survive a fortnight of late nights. Families usually keep the morning puja short and the evening aarti fuller, before people leave for the ground.

The second is the handoff from Pitru Paksha. The shraddha fortnight ends on 10 October and the Ghatasthapana follows the next morning, leaving no clear day between them. Households observing both should do the Navratri shopping before the shraddha fortnight rather than in the gap, because there is no gap.

A ghat established at a shop or an office is often combined with a business puja.

Booking a Pandit for Navratri

Most Surat households perform the Ghatasthapana themselves. A pandit is called for the occasions that ask for more. Establishing the ghat for the first time in a new home, a full Durga puja with sankalp, the Ashtami or Navami havan with purnahuti, Sandhi Puja where a household observes it, and a ghat installed at a shop. Pandit Ramkishan Joshi performs all of these across Surat and the surrounding areas, and can confirm the muhurat for your own location.

Two dates carry almost all the demand this year. Every household establishing a ghat needs the same Sunday morning window on 11 October, and because Ashtami and Navami have collapsed into Monday, 19 October, every havan booking competes for one date instead of two. Festival dates are usually taken about a month in advance. To fix a time, get in touch with your location and whether you want the Ghatasthapana, the Ashtami havan, or both, and the samagri list will be shared beforehand.