Vinayaka Caturthī (Gaṇeśa Caturthī) falls on Bhādrapada Śukla Caturthī and is the year's principal Gaṇeśa festival — an image of the deity is installed, worshipped for one to eleven days, and then immersed (visarjana) — as well as the one day of the year when viewing the moon is traditionally avoided altogether. On the Panchang the civil date follows bhādrapada Śukla Caturthī prevailing at local Madhyāhna. Because tithi and nakṣatra boundaries are reckoned from local sunrise, the same observance can fall a day earlier or later in another city. The most widely told origin, from the Śiva Purāṇa, has Pārvatī fashioning Gaṇeśa from turmeric or sandal paste scraped from her own body and setting him to guard her door while she bathed; when Śiva, not recognising him, was refused entry, he beheaded the boy in anger. To console Pārvatī, Śiva sent his gaṇas to bring the head of the first creature found facing north — an elephant — and revived Gaṇeśa with it, declaring him foremost among the gaṇas (Gaṇapati/Vināyaka) and to be worshipped before any other undertaking. This same Caturthī carries a second, separate legend: while accepting food on the day of his birth, Gaṇeśa is said to have laughed at the moon god Candra for mocking his form, and cursed him that anyone who looked at the moon on this Caturthī night would face a false accusation of theft. The story is most often told through Kṛṣṇa, who — after glimpsing the moon on this day — was wrongly blamed for stealing the Syamantaka jewel until the true thief was found; reciting the Syamantaka episode is the traditional remedy for anyone who inadvertently sees the moon that night. This is the same curse referenced, in reverse, on this site's Sankashti Caturthī pages, where moon-viewing is the required closing act rather than the forbidden one — the two Caturthīs sit on opposite sides of the same legend. Household worship follows the pattern common to all Gaṇeśa vratas — bathing and dressing the mūrti, durvā grass, modaka as naivedya — but on a larger scale and for a fixed multi-day span (most commonly 1½, 3, 5, 7, or the full 10 days), ending in visarjana, when the image is carried in procession and immersed in a river, tank, or the sea. The large public, community-pandal form of the festival — as opposed to purely household worship — is a comparatively recent institution, popularised by Bal Gangadhar Tilak from 1893 in Mahārāṣṭra as a way to gather people publicly under colonial rule; Mumbai and Pune's large pandals descend directly from that 19th-century revival rather than from ancient practice. The immersion is covered separately on this site's Vināyaka Nimarjanam and Ananta Caturdaśī pages for households that keep the full ten-day span. Recite Gaṇeśa Aṣṭottara and Saṅkaṭanāśana Stotram from this site's Stotram pages. Dates below for 2026 are computed from sunrise at your selected place. The same vrata can fall on an adjacent civil day in another city.
