Annapurna Jayanti 2025 Date
Annapurna Jayanti 2025 is on Thursday, 4 December 2025, on Pournami tithi.
Dates are for India (IST). Tithi timings for your city are on the Annapurna Jayanti page.
About Annapurna Jayanti
On Margashirsha Purnima, devotees mark the day Shiva himself stood before Parvati with a begging bowl — conceding that food is not illusion. Annapurna, his form of Parvati, is worshipped at her Kashi temple beside Vishwanath, with grain offerings and free community meals called Annakshetra.
The legend turns on a quarrel. Shiva once dismissed the material world — food included — as maya, mere illusion. Parvati answered by withdrawing all nourishment from creation. Famine followed. Shiva walked to Kashi with a skull-cap begging bowl and asked her for alms, accepting that the body and even the spirit need feeding. From that moment Parvati was worshipped as Annapurna, "she who is full of food." Her images carry a golden ladle and a jewelled bowl of rice. Adi Shankaracharya wrote the Annapurna Ashtakam in her honour, still recited before meals in many homes. Her chief shrine stands a few steps from Kashi Vishwanath in Varanasi, and on this Purnima the temple holds an Annakshetra — a mass feeding where thousands eat as her guests. Donating cooked food and grain on this day is held to be the highest charity.
