Rama Navami
The birth of Rama, on Chaitra Shukla Navami, observed at midday because that is the hour the Ramayana gives.
Where it is kept All India; especially Ayodhya, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
When it falls
Computed from the Moon's elongation from the Sun. The civil day is the one carrying the tithi running at midday — the madhyahna division.
Overview
Chaitra Shukla Navami, the ninth tithi of the bright fortnight, closing the spring Navratri. The observance is kept at madhyahna, the midday division of the day, and not at sunrise — the calculator on this site places it accordingly, which is why it can fall on a different civil date from a list that uses the sunrise rule.
In Ayodhya the day draws the largest gathering of the year. In Maharashtra and Andhra the temple ritual is a Rama-Sita kalyanam, a wedding rather than a birth; in Bhadrachalam this is the principal event of the year. The Ramcharitmanas is read in the north, the Valmiki Ramayana in the south, and in Odisha the day opens the Chandan Yatra season.
Where it comes from
The Valmiki Ramayana gives the birth with unusual astronomical precision — Bala Kanda, sarga 18: the month of Chaitra, the ninth tithi, the nakshatra Punarvasu, Karka lagna, and five planets in exaltation with Jupiter and the Moon together. It is the most specific birth-chart statement in the epic literature, and it is the reason the observance is fixed to a tithi and an hour rather than to a season.
The public celebration in its present form owes much to the Ramanandi sampradaya and to Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas of the sixteenth century, which put the story into Awadhi and made the recitation a household act rather than a priestly one.
Why it matters
It closes Chaitra Navratri, so for those keeping the nine-day fast this is the day it ends — the Devi observance resolving into the birth of the avatara.
The midday timing is not incidental. The texts place the birth in the Abhijit muhurta, the short window straddling local noon, and the temple arati is timed to it. A celebration held at dawn or in the evening is following convenience rather than the rule.
How to celebrate
- Keep the arati at local middayThe birth hour given in the Ramayana is madhyahna; Abhijit muhurta is the window.
- Read or hear the Ramayana — Balakanda at minimumThe birth sarga is the text of the day.
- Break the Navratri fast today if you kept itChaitra Navratri ends on Navami, not Dashami.
- Offer panakam, kosambari and buttermilk in the southern mannerThe jaggery-and-pepper drink is the standard offering, suited to the heat of the season.
What to avoid
These are not all the same kind of thing. Some are prohibitions from a named text, some are Indian law, some are practical, and some are a confusion worth not repeating. Each item says which it is.
- Do not eat before the midday arati if you are keeping the dayThe fast, where kept, runs until the birth hour has passed.
- Do not take meat, alcohol or onion and garlic in the house on this dayStandard for a Vaishnava observance day, and kept even by households that do not otherwise abstain.
- Do not assume the sunrise-rule date printed in a wall calendarSome panchangs place it by sunrise and some by midday; where the Navami tithi begins late in the morning, the two disagree by a day.
Where this comes from
Everything above is either computed by this site’s own panchang engine, or drawn from the works listed here. Where a custom is modern, commercial or contested, the page says so rather than presenting it as ancient.
- Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda 1.18.8–10, for the tithi, nakshatra, lagna and planetary positions at the birth.
- Nirnayasindhu and Dharmasindhu, for the madhyahna-vyapini rule that selects the civil day.
- Tulsidas, Ramcharitmanas, Bala Kanda, for the form the north Indian observance takes.
Dates are computed for the place named above and will differ elsewhere. Regional traditions vary; where two reckonings are in use, both are named rather than one being chosen silently.
Other festivals
All festivals, with dates for any year · The calendar on the home page