Ram Navami 2028: Date, Puja Muhurat & Significance

Ram Navami Muhurat: 11:09 AM to 1:40 PM (New Delhi).

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

Shukla Ashtami runs 2 Apr, 13:22 → 3 Apr, 12:00.

1. Fast through the morning. Many keep a fast until the birth at midday, with fruit and milk or without water, as family custom holds.
2. Prepare the altar. Place an image of Rama with Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman on a yellow or red cloth, with a small cradle for Ram Lalla.
3. Midday birth. At madhyahna, the window this page gives, bathe the idol of Ram Lalla with panchamrit and then clean water, marking the birth, and rock the cradle.
4. Offerings. Offer tulsi, flowers, sandal and akshat, and naivedya of panjiri, kheer or fruits; in the South, panakam and kosambari are offered.
5. Recitation. Read the birth episode from the Ramcharitmanas Bal Kand or the Valmiki Ramayana, or recite the Ram Raksha Stotra.
6. Aarti and parana. Perform the aarti, sing bhajans, and break the fast with the prasad after the puja.

• Image of Rama with Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman
• A small cradle for Ram Lalla
• Yellow or red cloth
• Panchamrit (milk, curd, ghee, honey, sugar)
• Tulsi leaves and flowers
• Sandal paste and akshat
• Panjiri, kheer or fruits
• Panakam (jaggery, dry ginger, pepper, cardamom) and kosambari, in the South
• Ghee lamp, incense and camphor

Rama was born in Ayodhya to King Dasharatha and Queen Kausalya at the Abhijit muhurta of midday, on Chaitra Shukla Navami, with the Moon in Punarvasu and Karka lagna rising: the janma-kundali the tradition has kept.

Because it is the ninth day of the Chaitra (Vasanta) Navratri, Ram Navami is at once the Maha Navami of the spring Navratri and the birth-day of Rama.

Rama is remembered as maryada purushottama (the ideal upholder of dharma as son, king, husband and friend), and the festival is a day of the Ramayana, the Sundarkand and Ram-naam.

In the South the day centres on the Sita-Rama Kalyanam, a ritual re-enactment of the wedding of Rama and Sita, most famously at Bhadrachalam.

Dasharatha of Ayodhya, long without an heir, performed the Putrakameshti yajna guided by the sage Rishyasringa. From the sacrificial fire a being rose and gave a bowl of divine payasam to be shared among the king's queens; Kausalya bore Rama, Kaikeyi bore Bharata, and Sumitra bore the twins Lakshmana and Shatrughna.

Rama was Vishnu descended in human form: Ravana had won a boon that no god or demon could kill him, but had not thought to ask protection against a man. Rama's life (the exile, the search for Sita, the war on Lanka and the return to rule Ayodhya) is the Ramayana.

The birth itself is placed at noon on Chaitra Shukla Navami, and the Ram Janmotsav at temples re-enacts that hour with the bathing and cradling of the infant Rama.

Source: Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda; Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas; Adhyatma Ramayana

Rama worship is attested from well before the common era; the Ram Navami vrata is described in the Puranas and the medieval nibandha works, and the Ramanandi sampradaya and the spread of Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas from the 16th century made it a major North Indian festival.

Ayodhya's Ramnavami mela on the Sarayu, the Bhadrachalam Sita Ramachandraswamy temple's Kalyanotsavam in Telangana (with the state's gift of pearls, mutyala talambralu), and the fair at Sitamarhi in Bihar, held to be Sita's birthplace, are among the largest observances.

At the Ram temple in Ayodhya a Surya Tilak has been arranged: an optical train of mirrors and a lens that casts a beam of noon sunlight onto the forehead of the idol on Ram Navami, a modern feature that stages Rama's descent from the solar dynasty.

• Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda: the birth of Rama
• Medieval Nibandha literature on the Rama Navami vrata
• Records of the Bhadrachalam Kalyanotsavam and the Ayodhya Ramnavami mela

1. A fast is taken from sunrise, phalahar by resolve, and the day is spent in the reading of the Ramayana or the Sundarkand, Ram-naam sankirtan, and the decoration of a small image or footprints of the infant Rama.
2. At the Madhyahna the Ram Janmotsav is held: the infant Rama is bathed, dressed, placed in a decorated cradle and rocked, and greeted with conch, bell and aarti; panakam and prasad are offered.
3. In the South the Sita-Rama Kalyanam is performed; shobha yatras carry tableaux of Rama, Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman through the streets.
4. The fast is broken after the noon celebration with the panakam and prasad.

• Ayodhya and North India. The Ramnavami mela and the Sarayu snan; jhankis at Kanak Bhavan and the Ram Janmabhoomi; the Ramcharitmanas paath in every Ram temple.
• Bihar. The large fair at Sitamarhi, held to be Sita's birthplace, and Ram-Janaki worship across Mithila.
• Maharashtra. The Ram Janma at noon at temples such as Kala Ram and Panchavati in Nashik, with the palana (cradle) song and sunthawada, a dry-ginger sweet.
• Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Bhadrachalam's Sita-Rama Kalyanotsavam, with panakam and vadapappu prasad and the government's talambralu (pearl-rice).
• Tamil Nadu. Sri Rama Navami with the Kalyana Utsavam and the free distribution of panakam and neer-mor to cool the spring heat.

• Panakam — A jaggery drink with cardamom, dry ginger, black pepper and lemon: the defining Ram Navami offering in the South, suited to the Chaitra heat.
• Vadapappu and neer majjige — Soaked split moong and spiced buttermilk, offered with the panakam.
• Sunthawada, panjiri, fruit and phalahar — A dry-ginger sweet for the 'new mother' in Maharashtra; roasted panjiri as prasad; fruit and non-grain food for those who fast until noon.

Ram Navami is kept on the day when Navami of Chaitra Shukla paksha prevails at Madhyahna (midday). That day is Monday, 3 April 2028, and the Ram Navami muhurat is from 11:09 AM to 1:40 PM. Navami holds at midday only on this day.

at Madhyahna (midday)

Ram Navami is the Shukla Navami of Chaitra: the ninth tithi of the waxing fortnight after the Chaitra new moon, with the Moon near the first quarter. The Janmotsav is anchored to the Madhyahna, the middle fifth of the day, because tradition places Rama's birth at noon in the Abhijit muhurta; the observed day is the one whose Madhyahna the Navami covers. The janma-kundali kept by tradition has the Sun in Mesha at its exaltation, the Moon in Karka in Punarvasu, and Karka lagna. The Sun stands in sidereal Meena or early Mesha near the vernal point. The Gregorian date drifts about 11 days earlier each year and jumps back ~19 days in an adhika-month year.

A lunar date: Navami 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.