What Is Rishi Panchami?
Rishi Panchami is observed on the Shukla Paksha Panchami of Bhadrapada and is kept in honour of the Sapta Rishis, the seven sages of the Vedic tradition. It is also written as Rushi Panchami. In 2026 it falls on Tuesday, 15 September.
The day is a vrat rather than a festival in the ordinary sense. There are no processions, no public gatherings and no decorated pandals. It is a quiet observance kept mostly by women, built around gratitude to the rishis who preserved and transmitted the Vedas, and around a day of restraint in food and conduct.
Rishi Panchami also closes a dense week in the Bhadrapada calendar. Hartalika Teej and Ganesh Chaturthi both fall on 14 September 2026, and Rishi Panchami follows the next morning. In several regions the three day Hartalika Teej fast concludes on Rishi Panchami rather than on Teej itself.
Rishi Panchami 2026 Date and Tithi Timings
Rishi Panchami 2026 is observed on 15 September 2026, Tuesday.
| Event | Date/Time |
|---|---|
| Rishi Panchami 2026 | 15 September 2026, Tuesday |
| Tithi | Shukla Paksha Panchami, Bhadrapada |
| Panchami Tithi Begins | 07:44 AM on 15 September 2026 |
| Panchami Tithi Ends | 08:59 AM on 16 September 2026 |
| Puja Muhurat | 11:02 AM to 01:30 PM |
| Duration | 2 hours 28 minutes |
The tithi turns at the same moment everywhere, but the puja window is calculated against your local midday. The timings above follow the Panchang for New Delhi, so use a Panchang set to your own city rather than the times published for Delhi.
Our Choghadiya timings cover the auspicious windows for the day, and the guide on choosing a shubh muhurat explains how the windows are arrived at.
Why Rishi Panchami Falls on 15 September in 2026
The Panchami Tithi runs from 07:44 AM on 15 September to 08:59 AM on 16 September, which places part of it on each of two days. Families comparing calendars often ask why the 15th carries the vrat when Panchami is still running on the morning of the 16th.
The answer lies in when the puja is performed. The Rishi Panchami puja belongs to the midday period rather than the early morning, and the muhurat published for 2026 runs from 11:02 AM to 01:30 PM. On 15 September the tithi is running right through that window. On 16 September it has already ended at 08:59 AM, well before midday. Only one of the two days can therefore carry the puja, and that is the 15th.
This is also why the usual udaya tithi rule, which assigns an observance to the day whose sunrise the tithi covers, does not decide this one. Panchami begins after sunrise on 15 September and is still running at sunrise on the 16th, so read by sunrise alone the rule would point to the wrong day. For this vrat the tithi is followed as it actually runs across the midday puja window instead. The same reasoning governs several other observances where a tithi straddles two days, including the Gujarat date for Nag Panchami and the way a Satyanarayan Vrat date can sit a day apart from a festival sharing the same tithi.
The Sapta Rishis Worshipped on Rishi Panchami
The vrat is dedicated to the seven sages regarded as the source of the Vedic tradition. The names most commonly used for the puja are:
- Kashyapa
- Atri
- Bharadwaja
- Vishwamitra
- Gautama
- Jamadagni
- Vashishtha
The list is not identical across every text. Different Puranas name different sets, and the Sapta Rishis are understood to change with each manvantara, so families sometimes follow a slightly different list. Use the names your family tradition prescribes or the ones your pandit recites during the puja.
Arundhati, the wife of Vashishtha, is worshipped alongside the seven in many households, and her name is included in the sankalp in some traditions.
Rishi Panchami Puja Vidhi
The puja can be performed at home. A pandit is usually called where the vrat is being kept formally for the first time, or where a family observes it with a full sankalp and havan.
Steps for Rishi Panchami Puja Vidhi
- Before the bath, perform the apamarga datun. The apamarga plant, also called chirchita, is used to clean the mouth, and its leaves are added to the bathing water along with the other ingredients your tradition prescribes. This purification bath is particular to Rishi Panchami and is not part of most other vrats.
- Clean the puja area and lay a clean cloth for the sthapana.
- Take the sankalp for the vrat, stating the names of the Sapta Rishis.
- Place the images of the Sapta Rishis, or set seven supari on the chowki to represent them, with an eighth supari for Mata Arundhati where your tradition includes her.
- Offer arghya with water, then haldi, kumkum, akshat, flowers and durva.
- Offer panchamrit, fruit and the naivedya prepared for the day.
- Light the deep and dhoop, and recite the names of the rishis.
- Read or listen to the Rishi Panchami vrat katha.
- Perform the aarti and offer prarthana for the family.
- Give daan to a Brahmin or to those in need, and break the vrat according to your family practice.
Rishi Panchami Puja Samagri
Keep the samagri ready the previous evening so the midday muhurat is not spent gathering items.
- Clean cloth for the sthapana and a chowki
- Images or a kalash for the Sapta Rishis
- Haldi, kumkum, akshat and chandan
- Flowers, durva and tulsi
- Panchamrit, made of milk, curd, ghee, honey and sugar
- Fruit and the naivedya prepared without grain
- Deep, ghee or oil, wicks, dhoop and camphor
- Supari, paan leaves and dakshina for the daan
Your pandit may add items specific to your family tradition or to the sankalp being taken, so confirm the list before the day.
Rishi Panchami Vrat Rules and What to Eat
The distinctive rule of this vrat concerns food that comes from ploughed land. Grains and cereals are traditionally set aside for the day, and the vrat is kept on what grows without the plough or on what the household has not tilled.
Practices commonly followed include:
- Taking a bath and completing the puja before the first meal of the day.
- Setting aside cultivated grains, and cooking with sendha namak in place of ordinary salt.
- Eating vegetables, fruits, milk and curd instead. Samvat rice, also called moraiyo, is the usual substitute where a grain is wanted.
- Avoiding onion, garlic and non-vegetarian food.
- Breaking the vrat after the puja and the katha are complete.
In Maharashtra a mixed vegetable dish called Rishichi Bhaji is made specially for this day and eaten after the puja, traditionally with seven, eleven or twenty one seasonal vegetables gathered by hand. Elsewhere the vrat food is simpler, and several families keep only a fruit and milk fast. The rules vary, so follow what your family has kept rather than a general list, and put health first if a strict fast is unsuitable.
Sama Pancham: Rishi Panchami in Gujarat
In Gujarat the same day is kept as Sama Pancham. The name comes from sama, the grain eaten on the vrat. This is the same grain called samvat rice earlier in this guide, under its Gujarati name, and it is also known as samo or moraiyo and in English as barnyard millet. It grows without the plough, which is why it is the grain customarily kept for the vrat.
The observance itself is the same. Women keep the vrat on the Bhadrapada Shukla Panchami, the Sapta Rishis are worshipped, and the day is kept for purification and for the blessings of the rishis. The date does not shift the way Nag Pancham does in Gujarat, so Sama Pancham and Rishi Panchami fall together on 15 September 2026.
Families with roots in two regions often notice the difference in the kitchen rather than the puja room. A Gujarati household will centre the day’s food on sama, while a Maharashtrian one will make the Rishichi Bhaji.
Rishi Panchami Vrat Katha
The katha is narrated by Lord Brahma to King Sitashva, who had asked for a vrat capable of removing the effects of past wrongdoing.
Brahma tells of Uttanga, a Brahmin of Vidarbha, and his wife Sushila. Their son was learned in the Vedas, and their daughter had been married into a good family but was widowed young. The family later moved to the banks of the Ganga, where Uttanga taught the Vedas to his disciples.
One night the daughter was afflicted so severely that her body and her garments were overrun with worms. When the disciples found her, they brought Sushila, who took her daughter to Uttanga in great distress.
Uttanga meditated on Lord Narayana and perceived the cause. In an earlier birth the daughter had not observed the rules laid down for the days of her monthly cycle, and when she saw the Rishi Panchami vrat being kept, she did not honour it. Sushila asked her husband to describe the vrat, and Uttanga set out its observance on the Shukla Panchami of Bhadrapada: bathing and worshipping the Sapta Rishis, and taking only vegetables for the day. The daughter kept the vrat, and the katha closes with the assurance that a woman who observes it lives in wellbeing and health.
Rishi Panchami, Hartalika Teej and Ganesh Chaturthi in 2026
Three observances fall within two days this year, which is unusual and worth planning around.
| Observance | Date 2026 |
|---|---|
| Hartalika Teej | 14 September, Monday |
| Ganesh Chaturthi | 14 September, Monday |
| Rishi Panchami | 15 September, Tuesday |
Hartalika Teej and Ganesh Chaturthi share a single English date in 2026 because each is fixed by a different part of the day, and one moment separates them. Tritiya runs until 07:06 AM on 14 September. The Hartalika puja belongs to the pratahkala, the early morning period, and its window that morning is 06:05 AM to 07:06 AM, closing at the very moment Tritiya ends. Teej is therefore kept in the first hours of the 14th. Chaturthi begins at that same moment, and Ganesh Chaturthi is decided by the midday window, which the new tithi is comfortably running through. One morning therefore ends one observance and begins the next.
The same two rules then hand the next day to Rishi Panchami. Chaturthi ends at 07:44 AM on 15 September, well before midday, and Panchami takes over from that moment and runs through the midday window. Ganesh visarjan on Anant Chaturdashi follows on Friday, 25 September 2026.
For households keeping more than one of these, the practical consequence is that the Ganesh sthapana and the Teej vrat land together, and the Rishi Panchami puja follows while the Ganesh utsav is still running at home.
Who Observes the Rishi Panchami Vrat
The vrat is kept mainly by married women, and in many families by unmarried daughters as well. It is observed in Maharashtra and in Gujarat, where it carries its own regional names and foods. The panchang sources also note that it is particularly widely kept among Nepali Hindus.
Tradition frames the vrat as a day of purification, and the classical texts connect it to the conduct prescribed for the days of the monthly cycle. That framing belongs to the vrat katha and to the shastra, and families read it differently today. Many keep the day as an act of gratitude to the rishis and a day of discipline, without reference to the older reading. Both are kept within the same tradition.
If a full fast is unsuitable for your health, keep a simpler vrat with fruit and milk, or offer the puja and daan without fasting. A vrat that damages health serves no one, and every tradition allows for it.
Booking a Pandit for Rishi Panchami Puja
Where a family is taking the sankalp for the first time, or wants the puja performed with the full vidhi and the katha recited properly, a pandit is usually called. Pandit Ramkishan Joshi performs Rishi Panchami puja at home in Surat and the surrounding areas, and can confirm the muhurat for your own city.
Festival dates are usually taken about a month in advance, so ask as early as you can. To fix a time for 15 September, get in touch with the date and your location, and the samagri list will be shared in advance.