Anant Chaturdashi 2028: Date, Rituals & Significance

Shukla Chaturdashi runs 2 Sept, 00:35 → 3 Sept, 02:52.

For the Anant vrat, a yellow thread of fourteen knots — the ananta — is worshipped with fourteen kinds of fruit and flowers and a kheer offering, then tied by men on the right arm and women on the left, and worn for fourteen days or a year; the vrat is kept for fourteen years and then formally concluded (udyapan).

For Ganesh Utsav the day is the visarsjan: households and mandals take Ganesha to a river, tank or sea to loud drumming, gulal and the cry 'Ganpati bappa morya, pudhchya varshi laukar ya' — come again soon next year. Mumbai's Lalbaugcha Raja and the Pune mandals draw immense crowds.

The Mahabharata's Anant vrat story is told by Krishna to Yudhishthira in the forest: a poor Brahmin's wife, Sushila, learned the vrat from women by a river and kept it, and the family prospered; her husband Kaundinya, proud of his own learning, tore off the thread in scorn, and the wealth vanished. Years of searching and penance followed until Ananta appeared and restored what pride had lost.

Source: Bhavishya Purana and Mahabharata — the Anant vrat and the Kaundinya story

The Anant Chaturdashi vrat and the Kaundinya story are in the Bhavishya Purana and the Mahabharata; the Ganesh Utsav visarjan on this day is the modern (post-1893, Tilak-era) public form of the Bhadrapada Ganesh Chaturthi festival, especially in Maharashtra.

• Bhavishya Purana and Mahabharata — the Anant vrat and the Kaundinya story
• Wikipedia — Anant Chaturdashi

1. Vishnu is worshipped as Anant, the endless, and a thread with fourteen knots, the Anant sutra, is tied on the arm: men on the right, women on the left.
2. The katha of Kaundinya and Sushila is read; the thread is worn for the year for protection.
3. In Maharashtra it is the last day of Ganesh Utsav, when Ganesha idols are taken in processions for immersion; for Digambar Jains it ends Das Lakshana.

• Maharashtra, Goa, Telangana, Karnataka. The final day of Ganesh Utsav — processions and immersion of the idols with drumming and gulal.
• North and East India. The Anant vrat — worship of the fourteen-knot thread of Vishnu-Ananta and tying it on the arm; kept for fourteen years.

• Kheer and puri — Offered to Anant and eaten as prasad.

Anant Chaturdashi is kept on the day when Chaturdashi of Bhadrapada Shukla paksha prevails at sunrise. That day is Saturday, 2 September 2028. Chaturdashi holds at sunrise only on this day.

at sunrise

Anant Chaturdashi is Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturdashi — the fourteenth tithi of the bright fortnight, the day before the Bhadrapada full moon. It falls in August or September, ten days after Ganesh Chaturthi, and the vrat puja is done in the morning.

A lunar date: Chaturdashi of the bright half of Bhadrapada drifts about 11 days earlier each solar year, then jumps back ~19 days when a leap (Adhika) month is inserted.