When is Anant Chaturdashi?
The answer
Friday, 25 September 2026
Ananta's vrat. The ten days of Ganesha end here.
Why that day
- The tithi it is
- Bhadrapada Shukla 14
Read the ordinary way: the day whose SUNRISE this tithi is running at.
And after that
Tuesday, 14 September 2027
Bhadrapada Shukla 14
Saturday, 2 September 2028
Bhadrapada Shukla 14
How this date is worked out
A festival is a position, not a date. The lunar month is named by the sidereal sign the Sun stands in at the new moon that opens it, and the tithi is the Moon's distance from the Sun in twelve-degree steps. Both come from the same ephemeris this site casts birth charts with.
North India reckons a month from full moon to full moon, so the dark fortnight carries the next month's name — the same day is Shravana Krishna Tritiya in Pune and Bhadrapada Krishna Tritiya in Delhi. These dates use the northern reckoning, and the tithi is printed above so there is nothing to take on trust.
Why it is kept
Anant Chaturdashi is the vrat of Vishnu as Ananta — the form with no beginning and no end. The story is from the Mahabharata: in exile Yudhishthira asked Krishna how a lost kingdom comes back, and this is the vrat Krishna named. It is also the day Ganesha goes into the water, because the ten days counted from Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi end here.
The story behind it
Sushila's vrat
Sumanta's daughter Sushila married the sage Kaundinya. On the way to her new home she saw women by a river keeping the Anant vrat, asked how it was done, and tied the fourteen-knot thread.
Everything arrives
From that day Kaundinya's house filled with grain and wealth. He took it for the fruit of his own austerity.
The thread broken
One day he saw the thread on her arm, asked what it was, and on hearing the answer tore it off in anger and threw it in the fire — what is this beside my tapasya.
Everything leaves
From that day it all went. The wealth, the grain, the house. Then he understood what he had broken.
Fourteen years
Kaundinya wandered looking for Ananta. Vishnu met him at the end and said: keep this vrat for fourteen years. He did, and it all came back.
What to keep ready
- The fourteen-knot anant sutra — silk or raw cotton, dyed in turmeric
- An image of Vishnu, or of Vishnu reclining on Shesha
- A kalash, a coconut and mango leaves
- Yellow flowers and yellow cloth
- Fourteen puris and fourteen sweet pieces of jaggery and flour
- Panchamrit — milk, curd, ghee, honey, sugar
- Incense, lamp, camphor, sandal, rice
- Banana, coconut and seasonal fruit
- Darbha grass, for the coil that stands in for Shesha
How the puja is done
1
Bathe and resolve
Bathe in the morning and wear yellow. The sankalp is for fourteen years — someone keeping it the first time is starting that count.
2
The kalash and Shesha
Yellow cloth on a low table, a kalash on it. Coil darbha grass into the serpent and set the image of Vishnu on it.
3
The thread is the deity
Place the fourteen-knot thread in front and worship it — sandal, rice, yellow flowers. The fourteen knots are the fourteen worlds.
4
The sixteen offerings
Vishnu with the sixteen upacharas, then the bhog of fourteen puris and fourteen sweet pieces.
5
Tying it on
Men on the right arm, women on the left. As it is tied: Anant sansar mahasamudre magnan samabhyuddhara Vasudeva.
6
Katha and aarti
Hear the story of Kaundinya and Sushila, then the aarti. Last year's thread comes off today and goes into water.
What to do
- Count the knots — fourteen, tied by hand. Fourteen worlds, fourteen years, fourteen knots.
- Last year's thread comes off today and goes into water, not into a bin.
- Keep count of the years. The sankalp is for fourteen from the year you began; leaving it midway is not the tradition.
- Ganesha's immersion is the same day, so prepare for both — and do the immersion after midday.
What not to do
- Do not treat the thread as string — do not throw it away and do not give it to anyone. The whole turn of the story is there: Kaundinya broke it and it all went.
- No salted grain on the day of the vrat — fruit, or one sattvik meal.
- Do not tie more or fewer than fourteen knots.
- No black cloth; this vrat's colour is yellow.
The aarti
Om Jai Jagdish Hare
ॐ जय जगदीश हरे, स्वामी जय जगदीश हरे।
भक्त जनों के संकट, क्षण में दूर करे॥
जो ध्यावे फल पावे, दुख बिनसे मन का।
सुख सम्पत्ति घर आवे, कष्ट मिटे तन का॥
मात-पिता तुम मेरे, शरण गहूँ किसकी।
तुम बिनु और न दूजा, आस करूँ जिसकी॥
तुम पूरण परमात्मा, तुम अंतर्यामी।
पारब्रह्म परमेश्वर, तुम सबके स्वामी॥
दीनबंधु दुखहर्ता, ठाकुर तुम मेरे।
अपने हाथ उठाओ, द्वार पड़ा तेरे॥
The sky has a calendar. So do you.
The same engine reads your own birth moment — every house, every graha, every period with dates.