Anant Chaturdashi
Lord Vishnu, Lord Ganesha
When it falls
The date shifts because it tracks the moon, not the Gregorian calendar.
Calculated for India (IST) using precise Panchang astronomy. Dates can shift by a day at locations far to the east or west.
Significance & story
Anant Chaturdashi is observed for Vishnu in his form as Ananta — "the endless one," the cosmic serpent Shesha on whose coils Vishnu reclines across the ocean of time. The day is built around that single idea of continuity: a protection that does not run out, a span that has no last day. Worshippers keep a vrat (a vow of fasting and restraint) and seek steadiness through difficult stretches rather than a one-off boon.
The central act is the anant — a thread, usually dyed with turmeric and knotted fourteen times, worshipped through the day and then tied on the wrist (men on the right, women on the left in most households). The fourteen knots are read as the fourteen worlds Vishnu pervades, or as fourteen years; the best-known story attaches the vow to the Pandavas, who are said to have kept it on Krishna's advice to recover what they had lost during their exile. The thread is worn until it wears away on its own.
For much of western and southern India the day carries a second, very public meaning: it is the tenth and final day of the Ganesh festival, when the household and community idols installed on Ganesh Chaturthi are carried in procession and immersed in water (visarjan). The same afternoon that is quiet and inward for an Ananta vrat-keeper is, on the streets of Mumbai and Pune, the busiest day of the year.
Rituals & observance
How Anant Chaturdashi is kept:
- A vrat is observed — fasting through the day, with the fast broken after the Vishnu puja is complete.
- The anant, a thread knotted fourteen times and dyed with turmeric, is worshipped and then tied on the wrist; the previous year's worn thread is set aside.
- Vishnu is worshipped in his Ananta form, often before an image of him reclining on the serpent Shesha; the story of the vow is read or recounted.
- Where the Ganesh festival is kept, the idols installed ten days earlier are given a farewell aarti and taken in procession for visarjan (immersion) in a river, lake, tank or the sea.
- Sweets and offerings prepared for Ganesh through the ten days are shared and distributed before the immersion.
Regional variations
How this date is determined
Observed on the Chaturdashi tithi of Bhadrapada (Shukla paksha), reckoned by sunrise (udaya tithi).
Dates are computed to astronomical precision (NASA/JPL ephemeris), in line with traditional panchang.
