Naraka Caturdaśī is the Kṛṣṇa Caturdaśī that falls the day before the Amāvāsyā of Dīpāvali. It remembers Kṛṣṇa's slaying of Narakāsura, the son of Bhūmi Devī, who had grown tyrannical through a boon and held sixteen thousand women captive at Prāgjyotiṣapura. Kṛṣṇa went against him with Satyabhāmā, killed him in battle and freed the women. Bhūmi Devī is said to have asked that her son's death be remembered with lamps and joy rather than mourning, and in much of South India this dawn, not the following Amāvāsyā, is the principal Dīpāvali. How the day is fixed: The day is the one on which Kṛṣṇa-pakṣa Caturdaśī is present at local sunrise, the day before the Amāvāsyā of Dīpāvali. The month is Āśvina in the amānta reckoning and Kārtika in the pūrṇimānta reckoning, so both names refer to the same day. Time of the bath: The abhyaṅga snāna is best taken in Aruṇodaya, the dawn hour before sunrise. Rāhu kālam, Yamagaṇḍam and Guḷikai are avoided where they overlap. Keep in mind: Because the tithi is read at local sunrise, the day can differ by one from place to place. Calendars therefore sometimes show two dates for Dīpāvali, one for this Caturdaśī and one for the Amāvāsyā. This year: The 2026 date shown here is worked out from sunrise at the place you chose, so in another city the same day can fall a day earlier or later. Abhyaṅga snāna: Sesame oil is applied to the head and body before a ceremonial bath taken strictly before sunrise. That one morning's bath is held to carry the merit of bathing in the Gaṅgā itself. Rites around the bath: In many South Indian and Maharashtrian households a small bitter fruit, treated as Narakāsura's head, is crushed underfoot just before the bath. New clothes, blessings from elders, sweets and firecrackers follow. Worth remembering: In much of North India this day is Choṭī Dīvālī, and the main Lakṣmī Pūjā falls on the following Amāvāsyā. In Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, Naraka Caturdaśī itself is the main day for new clothes and firecrackers, and the Amāvāsyā is comparatively quieter. Each region has made the morning its own. Tamil and Kerala homes treat it as Dīpāvali itself, Karnataka fills the bath vessel the night before, Maharashtra crushes the kārīṭ and waves the ārati, Gujarat drives out the year's quarrels on Kāḷī Caudas, Bengal lights fourteen lamps for the ancestors on Bhūt Caturdaśī, and Odisha prepares for the great ancestral night that follows. Whichever form a household keeps, the surest guide is the way its own elders have kept the day.
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