2025
Sunday, 19 October 2025
In 2025 the tithi runs from 1:52 pm on 19 Oct to 3:45 pm on 20 Oct; it is running at moonrise on Sunday, 19 October 2025, so that is the day of Naraka Chaturdashi.
2026
Saturday, 7 November 2026
In 2026 the tithi runs from 10:48 am on 7 Nov to 11:28 am on 8 Nov; it is running at moonrise on Saturday, 7 November 2026, so that is the day of Naraka Chaturdashi.
How the date is fixed
Naraka Chaturdashi falls on the fourteenth day of the dark half of the lunar month Ashwina (Krishna Chaturdashi). The date is the day on which that tithi is running at moonrise. In the North Indian (purnimanta) calendar the same fortnight is counted in Kartika.
About
Naraka Chaturdashi is the fourteenth tithi of the dark half of Ashwina in amanta reckoning, the day between Dhanteras and Diwali, in October or November. The abhyanga snan (oil bath) is taken in the last part of the night, after the waning Moon has risen and before sunrise, so the day on which Chaturdashi is present at that pre-dawn moonrise is chosen. In some years this makes Naraka Chaturdashi and Diwali fall on the same civil day. Gujarat keeps it as Kali Chaudas, Bengal as Bhoot Chaturdashi with fourteen lamps, and Goa with effigies of Narakasura.
How it is observed
An oil bath before dawn, lamps lit in the evening, and in Bengal fourteen lamps for fourteen generations of ancestors.