Ahoi Ashtami 2027 Date

About Ahoi Ashtami

The one festival where mothers draw a goddess with eight corners — for the eighth tithi — and beside her sketch Syahu the hedgehog with her pups. Observed on Kartik Krishna Ashtami, four days after Karwa Chauth, the fast ends only when the evening stars appear.

The wall drawing tells the whole story. A woman digging clay in the Kartik forest accidentally killed some hoglets with her spade; within a year all seven of her sons were gone. An elder told her to sketch the hoglet's face and fast for Ahoi Bhagawati — a form of Parvati who guards the young of every creature — and her sons returned. That is why the puja image shows the goddess flanked by Syahu (the hedgehog mother) and her babies, with seven sons and daughters-in-law in a row. Halwa and seven grass shoots are offered to Syahu. In many Punjabi and Kumaoni homes mothers also worship a small silver pendant called Syau, washed in milk during the puja and worn afterwards on a thread with two silver beads. At Radha Kund in Braj, childless couples bathe before dawn on this tithi.