Vivah Panchami
The fifth tithi of bright Margashirsha — the wedding day of Rama and Sita, kept at Janakpur and Ayodhya.
Where it is kept Mithila — Janakpur in Nepal and Sitamarhi and Madhubani in Bihar — and Ayodhya.
When it falls
Computed from the Moon's elongation from the Sun. The civil day is the one carrying the tithi running at sunrise.
Overview
The marriage of Rama and Sita is placed on this tithi, and at Janakpur — Sita's birthplace in the Nepal Terai — it is the year's principal festival, with the full wedding performed over several days and a procession bringing the groom's party from Ayodhya.
The observance is a wedding, not a birth or a victory: the mandap is raised, the barat arrives, the rites are conducted in full, and the Mithila wedding songs are sung. Temples across the north hold the same ceremony on a smaller scale.
Where it comes from
The Balakanda of the Valmiki Ramayana gives the swayamvara at Mithila and the breaking of Shiva's bow, followed by the marriages of all four brothers to Janaka's daughters and nieces. The Ramcharitmanas expands it considerably, and its Mithila sections are the source of most of the songs used.
Janakpur's temple, the Janaki Mandir, was built in 1910; the festival there is older than the building and belongs to the Mithila region's own devotional tradition.
Why it matters
In Mithila it is the local claim on the Ramayana — the region as Sita's home rather than as a place the story passes through — and the songs and the ritual forms are Maithili rather than Awadhi.
There is a countervailing custom worth knowing: in parts of Mithila, families avoid fixing their own daughters' weddings on this day, on the reasoning that Sita's marriage, however exalted, led to exile and separation. The custom is real and locally held.
How to celebrate
- Perform or attend the ceremonial weddingThe observance is the rite itself.
- Read the Balakanda or the Mithila sections of the RamcharitmanasThe text of the day.
- Sing or hear the Maithili wedding songsThe regional form the festival exists in.
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 fix a household wedding on this day if your family keeps the Mithila customThe avoidance is local and specific; it is not a general rule.
- Do not treat it as Rama NavamiThat is the birth, in Chaitra; this is the marriage, in Margashirsha.
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 66–73, for the bow and the marriages.
- Tulsidas, Ramcharitmanas, Bala Kanda, for the expanded Mithila narrative.
- The Mithila avoidance custom is regional practice, reported as such.
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