Countdown

Chhath Puja 2026

Name: Chhath Puja 2026
Start: 2026-11-15
Location: India

Sunday, November 15, 2026 · 10 days away

India Religiousscheduled

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Chhath Puja 2026

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Event overview

Chhath Puja 2026 — four-day Vedic festival of thanksgiving to Surya the Sun god, centred on Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and the Mithilanchal diaspora.

Date: 2026-11-15
Country / jurisdiction: India
Region: India
Category: Religious
Status: scheduled

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Date signal

The date is suitable for countdown use, with the source still owning late changes.

Local time

No reliable start time is attached yet, so this page stays date-first instead of implying midnight.

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Source trail

Source trail for Chhath Puja 2026

Verify source

Primary source

drikpanchang.com

Last reviewed

2026-04-30

Tracker status

scheduled

Date precision

Single-date event without a reliable public start time; date-first countdown only.

Schema posture

Event structured data is emitted because the record is single-date and scheduled or confirmed.

This is an expected date. Use reminders and monitoring, but verify the source before making travel, purchase, publication, or staffing decisions.

Primary citation

The current date signal points to drikpanchang.com. The source URL is shown visibly on the page so readers can verify late changes instead of relying only on the timer.

Freshness and review

Source policy was reviewed on 2026-04-30. Live countdown values are render-time snapshots; editorial source fields update when the tracked event dataset changes.

Operational detail

The record does not carry a reliable public start time yet, so the page avoids implying a midnight or all-day start.

Weak-date handling

The page can support calendar actions and Event schema, while still telling readers to check the source for operational changes.

What this countdown tracks

Chhath Puja 2026 — the four-day Vedic festival of thanksgiving to Surya the Sun god — with the principal day, Sandhya Arghya, falling on Sunday, November 15, 2026. Observed by tens of millions across Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh, and the Mithilanchal diaspora worldwide.

About this festival

Chhath Puja is one of the oldest extant Vedic-era festivals, with hymns to Surya in the Rigveda providing direct textual continuity. The festival worships Surya — the Sun — together with his consort Usha (dawn) and his sister Chhathi Maiya, the goddess of childbirth and child welfare. It is observed without idols, priests, mediation or temples — just direct worship of the visible Sun, performed by the family at a riverbank, pond, or other water body.

The four-day sequence falls on Kartika Shukla Chaturthi to Saptami (the 4th to 7th lunar days of the bright fortnight of Kartika). Day 1 (Nahay-Khay) involves a ritual bath and a single sattvic meal. Day 2 (Lohanda or Kharna) requires a 24-hour waterless fast that is broken in the evening with kheer made from new-harvest rice and jaggery. Day 3 (Sandhya Arghya) is the festival's most photographed moment — the entire family gathers at a river or pond at sunset, and the vrati (the woman or man observing the fast) stands waist-deep in water and offers the first arghya to the setting Sun. Day 4 (Usha Arghya) repeats the offering at sunrise the following morning.

The festival is unique in two ways. First, it explicitly worships the setting as well as the rising Sun — the only major Hindu festival to do so. Second, the entire 36-hour observance from Kharna onward is performed without food and without water, making it one of the most physically demanding fasts in the Hindu calendar.

How it's observed

The visual signature of Chhath Puja is hundreds of thousands of women in red or yellow saris standing in lines at riverbank ghats during sunset and sunrise, holding bamboo soop (winnowing baskets) filled with thekua (sweet wheat-flour cookies), bananas, sugarcane, coconuts and seasonal fruits. The Ganga ghats of Patna — Gandhi Ghat, Kali Ghat, NIT Ghat — and the river fronts of Varanasi, Bhagalpur, Munger, and Begusarai become enormous open-air pujas with millions of participants. Smaller riverbanks, village ponds, and city park reservoirs host neighbourhood gatherings.

The festival's foods are distinctive. Thekua, the flagship prasad, is a deep-fried wheat-flour-and-jaggery cookie shaped in wooden moulds; it is prepared in clean kitchens with strict purity rules and distributed widely. New-harvest rice kheer, sugarcane, raw turmeric and ginger root, ber (Indian jujube) and seasonal greens make up the offerings.

Chhath Puja is a public holiday in Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern UP. The diaspora — particularly Bihari and Mithilanchali communities in Mumbai, Delhi, the US, the UK, Mauritius, Trinidad, and the Gulf — recreates the festival at suburban lakes, swimming pools and reservoirs. Mumbai's Juhu beach and Mira-Bhayandar reservoirs host some of the largest non-Bihar Chhath gatherings.

Past observances

November 5, 2025 — Chhath Puja 2025 (Sandhya Arghya day)
November 7, 2024 — Chhath Puja 2024
November 19, 2023 — Chhath Puja 2023
October 30, 2022 — Chhath Puja 2022
November 10, 2021 — Chhath Puja 2021
November 20, 2020 — Chhath Puja 2020

How to observe

Drik Panchang and the Bihar government's Chhath Puja portal publish exact arghya timings for cities. Doordarshan Bihar and Sahara Samay broadcast the major Patna ghats live. The Bihari and Mithilanchali diaspora associations in Mumbai, the UK, the US, and Mauritius organise community Chhath gatherings. Indian Railways operates special Chhath Puja trains from Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Surat, Ahmedabad and Bangalore back to Bihar — booked out within minutes of opening months in advance.

Chhath Puja follows Diwali 2026 by about a week and shares the broader Kartika observances. Pair with Raksha Bandhan 2026, Ratha Yatra 2026 and Pongal 2026 on the wider Hindu festival calendar.

FAQ

When is Chhath Puja 2026? The four-day festival runs November 13–16, 2026; the principal Sandhya Arghya day is Sunday, November 15. What's the fast like? From the evening of Day 2 (Kharna) to the morning of Day 4 (Usha Arghya) — about 36 hours without food or water. Where is Chhath Puja most observed? Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Nepal, and the global Bihari and Mithilanchali diaspora. Why is sunset worshipped? Chhath is the only major Hindu festival to formally worship the setting Sun (Sandhya Arghya) alongside the rising Sun (Usha Arghya); both are seen as forms of Surya.

Date confidence

Scheduled date

Chhath Puja 2026 is tracked as a scheduled event. The date is suitable for countdown and calendar use, while final logistics should still be checked against the linked source.

Source

https://www.drikpanchang.com/festivals/chhath-puja/chhath-puja-date.html

Source host: drikpanchang.com
Date precision: Single scheduled date from the linked source
Schema posture: Event startDate emitted because the record is single-date and scheduled/confirmed
Planning boundary: Use as a monitoring aid until the source trail is stronger

Structured data posture

This page emits Event structured data because the tracked record has a single scheduled or confirmed date. The linked source remains the final reference for time, venue, and operational changes.

Countdown evidence

Retention class

Date-first scheduled countdown

Evidence score

5/10 record signals

City-page readiness

Held to date-first

Evidence score5/10 signals present: primary source URL; tracked date; schema-safe date; place context; related event cluster
Date and schemaSchema-safe single date: Single-date event without a reliable public start time; date-first countdown only. Event structured data is emitted because the record is single-date and scheduled or confirmed.
Local-time readinessDate-first only: The record is not used as a city-local event page until it has a reliable time, timezone, and non-windowed date.
Record completeness1 concrete fields: country India
Weak-field watchlist4 fields to improve: verified public start time; venue; manual official-source note; historical sequence
Source freshnessdrikpanchang.com; reviewed 2026-04-30: Related crawl path: India DPDP Phase 2 — Consent Manager Framework Live, Diwali 2026, Dhanteras 2026, Guru Nanak Jayanti 2026.

Planning notes

How to use this Chhath Puja 2026 countdown

Countdown pages are useful when they are honest about what is known, what is merely expected, and what still needs checking. This page keeps the live timer separate from the source confidence and structured-data posture.

Date confidence

Chhath Puja 2026 is tracked as scheduled for Sunday, November 15, 2026; the countdown can support reminders while final logistics still belong to drikpanchang.com. The page can emit precise Event structured data because the tracked record has a single scheduled or confirmed date.

What could change

Watch for date shifts, venue or access updates, broadcast windows, registration rules, and source corrections. The current precision is: Single-date event without a reliable public start time; date-first countdown only..

Local-time usefulness

No reliable source start time is attached yet, so the page stays date-first and avoids implying a midnight start. 10 days remain at render time.

Category context

Chhath Puja 2026 sits in Religious with country India. Related countdown links should help users compare similar events, not create unverified event-city pages.

Catalog-specific details

No creator, platform, league, brand, fixture, family, or alternate-name detail is attached to this event record.

Series and expectation notes

No series history, end date, or what-to-expect field is attached.

Priority note

This page is kept specific through source confidence, category, region, date precision, and update notes rather than generic countdown filler.

Verification trail

source URL https://www.drikpanchang.com/festivals/chhath-puja/chhath-puja-date.html. trust checks: Source host: drikpanchang.com, Date precision: Single scheduled date from the linked source, Schema posture: Event startDate emitted because the record is single-date and scheduled/confirmed, and Planning boundary: Use as a monitoring aid until the source trail is stronger. no manual editorial context is attached yet.

Record completeness

present fields: country India. missing or weak fields: verified public start time, venue, manual official-source note, and historical sequence

Related crawl path

Nearby retained events: India DPDP Phase 2 — Consent Manager Framework Live, Diwali 2026, Dhanteras 2026, Guru Nanak Jayanti 2026, and First Sunday of Advent 2026. These links should support topical discovery without creating unverified event-city pages.

Review boundary: this page tracks the public date signal, source link, category, region, and calendar posture. It does not replace official ticketing, exchange, broadcaster, organizer, court, regulator, or government notices.

Source reviewed Apr 30, 2026. The countdown record is intentionally labeled as scheduled or expected; use the source link and any range notes before treating the date as final.

Live values rendered at Nov 5, 5:50 PM UTC.

Related planning pages

Countdown hubAll currently tracked countdowns.Religious countdownsRelated events in this category.2026 countdownsEvents tracked for the same calendar year.India countdownsRegion-specific countdown pages.SourcesHow we cite and review date sources.Speculative datesHow expected and windowed dates are labeled.

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