Diwāli — Lakṣmī Pūjā, pradoṣa and niśītha together
The popular claimLakṣmī Pūjā needs an amāvasyā that reaches the evening. In 2026 it reaches midnight too.
The pūjā at the centre of Diwāli belongs to a night, and the night is defined by a tithi that does not start or end at midnight. That is the whole source of the annual argument about which day it is.
The rule
Lakṣmī Pūjā is performed on Kārttika amāvasyā — the new moon — and the texts name two windows within the day for it. The first is pradoṣa, the two-and-a-quarter hours after sunset. The second is niśītha, the middle of the night: the muhūrta around midnight, roughly an hour either side of it.
The day taken is the one on which amāvasyā is present in the pradoṣa. Where amāvasyā covers the pradoṣa on two consecutive evenings, the second is preferred; where it covers neither, the evening on which it is present at niśītha decides. The Dharmasindhu spells out these cases in order, because they come up.
2026, computed
Amāvasyā begins at 11:28 AM on Sunday 8 November and ends at 12:32 PM on Monday 9 November — Delhi times from this site's engine.
- Sunday 8. Sunset 5:30 PM; pradoṣa runs roughly 5:30 to 7:54 PM. Amāvasyā, which began before noon, covers it. Niśītha, around midnight going into the 9th, is also amāvasyā.
- Monday 9. Amāvasyā ends at 12:32 PM. By sunset the tithi is Pratipadā. The pradoṣa test fails, and so does niśītha.
Only one evening qualifies. Diwāli — Lakṣmī Pūjā — 2026: Sunday 8 November. Both windows, pradoṣa and niśītha, fall on the same night, which is the simple case.
Toronto: the same amāvasyā runs from 12:58 AM on the 8th to 2:02 AM on the 9th, local time. Sunday's pradoṣa and Sunday's midnight are both inside it. Sunday there too.
The day before, and the day after
Two other observances bracket the pūjā and are usually printed without their rules.
Naraka Caturdaśī, the day before, is fixed not to the evening but to the pre-dawn: the abhyaṅga-snāna, the oil bath, is taken in the last part of the night while Caturdaśī is present and the Moon is up. In 2026 Caturdaśī runs from 10:48 AM on the 7th to 11:28 AM on the 8th, so the pre-dawn of Sunday 8 November is the one — the same civil day as Lakṣmī Pūjā. Morning bath, evening lamps, one Sunday. In other years they fall a day apart, and neither arrangement is an error.
Govardhan, the day after, is fixed to Pratipadā in the morning. Pratipadā in 2026 begins at 12:32 PM on the 9th, so the morning of the 9th is still amāvasyā and Govardhan moves to Tuesday 10 November. Monday the 9th carries no festival at all, which surprises people every time it happens. It has its own page.
Why the times above are not the times for you
The tithi boundary is one instant, converted to your clock. The windows it has to cover — sunset to two hours after, and the hour around midnight — are yours. In most years, and in this one, the answer is the same across the world. In the years when amāvasyā ends within an hour or two of dusk somewhere, it is not, and two cities keep Diwāli a day apart with both of them right. This site's panchang computes the answer for the city you type rather than copying Delhi.
What this page does not say
It does not say what the pūjā will bring. Lakṣmī is worshipped on this night because the texts place her worship here; the texts do not attach a ledger to it and this page does not invent one. The lamps are lit at the hour the rule names. What the night means in your house is not a computation.
Source — Dharmasindhu and Nirnayasindhu on Lakshmi-puja at pradosha and at nishitha on Kartika amavasya, and on Naraka-chaturdashi at the pre-dawn hour; sunrise, sunset and tithi boundaries computed by this site's panchang engine for Delhi and Toronto
Every claim on this site names its source, and every calculator shows its arithmetic.