Chaitra Navratri 2028: Date, Puja Muhurat & Significance

Ghatasthapana (main time): 6:17 AM to 10:23 AM (New Delhi).

• Abhijit Muhurat (alternative): 12:02 PM – 12:51 PM

Why two times? The main time is the first third of the day after sunrise, while Pratipada prevails. If that isn't possible, Abhijit Muhurat is given as the alternative.

These times are worked out from local sunrise and sunset, so they shift by city. Choose your city for your own times.

Shukla Pratipada runs 26 Mar, 10:01 → 27 Mar, 11:43.

The rites mirror Sharad Navratri: ghatasthapana on Pratipada, a barley-sprout jayanti, the daily worship of Shailaputri through Siddhidatri, fasting on phalahar, and the reading of the Durga Saptashati. Kanya pujan is done on Ashtami or Navami. It is a favoured time to begin new work, mantras and study — the vernal counterpart of the autumn festival.

In Maharashtra it opens with Gudi Padwa; in Andhra and Karnataka with Ugadi; in the Ayodhya–Mithila belt it builds toward Ram Navami at noon on the ninth day, with Ramayana recitation and the Ramcharitmanas path. Vasanta Navratri is considered especially auspicious for tantric and Sri Vidya sadhana.

The Devi Bhagavata and the Durga Saptashati place four Navratris in the year, of which Chaitra (spring) and Ashwin (autumn) are the great public ones. Spring Navratri is tied to the Ramayana: Rama is said to have worshipped the Goddess for nine days before the war, and to have been born at its close on Navami, so the festival carries both the Shakta nine nights and the Vaishnava birth of Rama.

Source: Devi Bhagavata Purana — the four Navratris and the spring festival

The four-Navratri scheme (two prakata, two gupta) is set out in the Devi Bhagavata Purana; Chaitra Navratri's public form is strongest in North and West India and the Deccan, where it coincides with the regional new year, while Bengal keeps the autumn festival as the major one.

• Devi Bhagavata Purana — the four Navratris and the spring festival
• Wikipedia — Chaitra Navratri

1. The spring Navratri begins with Ghatasthapana: a kalash is installed and barley is sown in a clay bed beside it, to sprout over the nine days.
2. Durga is worshipped as Shailaputri on the first day, with a different form each day after, and the Durga Saptashati is recited.
3. The same day is Gudi Padwa, Ugadi and the Hindu New Year; the Navratri ends with Ram Navami.

• North India (Ayodhya, Mithila, the Ganga belt). Nine days of Durga worship and fasting building to Ram Navami at midday on the ninth; Ramayana and Ramcharitmanas recitation.
• Maharashtra, Andhra, Karnataka. Begins with Gudi Padwa / Ugadi as the new year; ghatasthapana and the Devi's nine forms kept alongside.

• Vrat food — Kuttu, singhara and sama-rice dishes, sabudana and fruit, cooked with rock salt.

Chaitra Navratri is kept on the day when Pratipada of Chaitra Shukla paksha prevails at sunrise. That day is Monday, 27 March 2028, and the Ghatasthapana muhurat is from 6:17 AM to 10:23 AM. Pratipada holds at sunrise only on this day.

at sunrise

Chaitra Navratri runs from Chaitra Shukla Pratipada to Navami — the first nine tithis of the bright fortnight of Chaitra, the first lunar month of the luni-solar year. Ghatasthapana is done in the morning of Pratipada; the festival falls in March or April.

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