Udaya Tithi
The tithi running at sunrise — the default owner of the civil day.
Most observances are taken on the day whose sunrise the tithi covers. That is the default, not a universal rule: a festival with its own governing kala — nishita, madhyahna, pradosha, aparahna, arunodaya — can land on a different civil day than the sunrise tithi would suggest. When this site says an observance is governed by udaya tithi, it means no special kala overrides it.
What Udaya Tithi governs
For these, no special period overrides the sunrise tithi — the day whose sunrise carries the tithi is the day they are kept.
Recurring vrats
- Ashtami twice monthly
- Chaturthi monthly
- Dwadashi monthly
- Mangala Gauri Vrat weekly in Shravana
- Navami monthly
- Saptami monthly
- Sawan Somwar Vrat weekly in Shravana
Annual festivals
- Bijoya Dashami The immersion. The Goddess is given a farewell, the married women perform sindoor khela, and the image is carried to the river. The day ends with Bijoya greetings — embraces, sweets, and visits to elders.
- Durga Ashtami The great eighth day, and for many households the one day of Navaratri they keep if they keep only one. The Sandhi Puja at the Ashtami–Navami junction is the puja's ritual centre, with 108 lamps and 108 lotuses.
- Hanuman Jayanti Hanuman's appearance day. Temples hold day-long recitation of the Hanuman Chalisa and the Sundarakanda, and sindoor mixed with oil is offered to the image.
- Maha Navami The ninth day and the last of the puja proper. The Navami homa is offered, and in the south this is commonly the day of the Ayudha and Saraswati worship of tools, instruments and books.
- Maha Saptami The second day of the Durga Puja, opening with the Nabapatrika bath at dawn. Nine plants bound together — banana, colocasia, turmeric, jayanti, bel, pomegranate, ashoka, arum and rice paddy — are bathed in the river before sunrise and installed beside Ganesha.
- Radha Ashtami Radha's appearance day, kept most intensely in the Braj country — Barsana, Vrindavan and Mathura — and in Vaishnava households and temples elsewhere. Temples hold abhishekam and shringar through the day, and Barsana's Ladli ji temple is the reference observance.
- Ugadi The first day of the lunar year for the Deccan and the west. The year's new panchanga is read, the Ugadi pachadi is eaten, and in Maharashtra the gudi is raised outside the house.