Navaratri — The Nine Nights, Explained

Navaratri means simply "nine nights". Twice a year — in Chaitra (March–April), ending on Ram Navami, and in Ashvin (September–October), the larger of the two, called Sharad Navaratri — Hindus give nine nights to the Goddess and keep the tenth day, Vijayadashami, as a day of victory. Two quieter gupta (hidden) Navaratris in Magha and Ashadha are kept mainly by Shakta practitioners.

The festival is made of several layers that grew up at different times, and it is easier to understand once you can tell them apart.

The oldest layer: the barley

On the first morning many households perform ghatasthapana — a pot (kalasha) of water is installed as the seat of the Goddess, and barley is sown in a bed of earth beside it. For nine days the lamp beside it is kept burning. By the tenth day the shoots (jaware, jamara) stand several inches high, and they are cut and worn or given away.

This is almost certainly older than the stories now attached to the nine nights. It is a seed-test at the turn of the season — the autumn sowing and the spring harvest are exactly when the two great Navaratris fall.

The book: the Devi Mahatmya

The text recited across Navaratri is the Devi Mahatmya, also called the Durga Saptashati ("the seven hundred verses") or simply the Chandi Path. It is thirteen chapters from the Markandeya Purana, and it is the first text to say outright that the supreme reality is a goddess.

It holds three battles, each assigned to an aspect of the Devi:

1. 1.[Madhu and Kaitabha](/learn/all/vishnu-and-the-demons-madhu-and-kaitabha) — chapter 1, Mahakali
2. 2.[Mahishasura](/learn/all/durga-and-mahishasura) — chapters 2–4, Mahalakshmi
3. 3.[Shumbha and Nishumbha](/learn/all/the-goddess-who-stood-alone-shumbha-and-nishumbha) — chapters 5–13, Mahasaraswati

…all held inside a frame story about a [king and a merchant](/learn/all/king-suratha-and-the-merchant-samadhi) who ask a sage why they cannot stop caring about people who wronged them. Many families read the whole book across the nine days; others read a chapter or two a night.

The nine names: the Navadurga

The custom of one form of Durga to each night — Shailaputri on the first, Siddhidatri on the ninth — comes from a single verse at the opening of the Devi Kavacha, a protective hymn recited before the Saptashati:

प्रथमं शैलपुत्री च द्वितीयं ब्रह्मचारिणी । तृतीयं चन्द्रघण्टेति कूष्माण्डेति चतुर्थकम् ॥

In its source that verse is a list of names, not a narrative. Some of the nine — Shailaputri, Brahmacharini, Skandamata — are clearly moments in Parvati's own life, and their stories are old. Others — Kushmanda, Siddhidatri — have no independent mythology, and the stories told about them now were written later, working backwards from the name. The nine stories in this series say which is which, night by night.

Read in order, the nine are best understood as one biography: a girl born to a mountain, her austerity, her marriage, her motherhood, her battle, the terrible night, and what lies on the other side of it.

Two cautions. The colour for each day printed in newspapers is recent — it spread from Gujarat and Maharashtra over the last few decades and the assignments change from year to year and publication to publication. It is genuinely observed, and it is not old. And not every set of nine goddesses is this set: Varanasi's nine-temple Navaratri circuit, for example, follows a different list.

One festival, many festivals

• Bengal, Assam, Odisha and Tripura keep the last five days as Durga Puja: Durga with Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesha and Kartikeya arrives as a married daughter coming home to her parents for a few days, and on Dashami she is immersed and sent back to Kailash. Durga Puja in Kolkata was inscribed on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage in 2021.
• Gujarat dances: garba and dandiya raas circle a lamp or the Goddess's image every night. Garba was inscribed by UNESCO in 2023.
• Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra set up golu (bommai kolu), stepped shelves of dolls; the last days honour Saraswati, and Ayudha Puja honours tools, books and vehicles.
• Kerala begins children's learning on Vijayadashami — Vidyarambham, a child's first letters traced in rice.
• North India stages the Ramlila across the nine nights and burns Ravana on the tenth day. Mysuru and Kullu keep Dasara on a royal and a temple scale respectively.

Fasting, and kanya pujan

Many people fast for all nine days, or on the first and last, on fruit, milk and the grains the tradition permits. The tradition's own exemptions — for the ill, the pregnant, the elderly and the very young — are part of the practice, not a lapse from it.

On the eighth or ninth day, many families perform kanya pujan: young girls are invited home, their feet are washed, and they are fed and given gifts as forms of the Goddess. The Devi Bhagavata Purana names girls of two to ten years as nine forms of the Devi. It is a beautiful rite, and it is worth thinking about alongside how girls are treated on the other three hundred and fifty-six days of the year.

The tenth day

Vijayadashami is a victory day twice over. For much of India it is the day Rama defeated Ravana — and in the Bengali and Puranic retellings he won only after worshipping Durga out of season, which is [the story behind the autumn Durga Puja](/learn/all/rama-and-the-untimely-worship-of-durga). For Maharashtra and Karnataka it is also the day of the [shami tree](/learn/all/arjuna-and-the-weapons-in-the-shami-tree), in which Arjuna hid his bow.

For the reference entries, see Navadurga, Durga and Devi. For a verse to carry through the nine nights: Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu and Sarva Mangala Mangalye.