Chaitra Amavasya 2026 Date
Chaitra Amavasya 2026 is on Thursday, 19 March 2026, on Amavasya tithi.
Dates are for India (IST). Tithi timings for your city are on the Chaitra Amavasya page.
About Chaitra Amavasya
The last new moon of the closing Hindu year in the Amanta calendar — the dark night just before Gudi Padwa and Ugadi open a new Samvatsara. Families use it to clear ancestral dues with tarpan before the new year begins the next morning.
Chaitra Amavasya sits at a hinge in the calendar. In the Amanta system used across Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra and Tamil Nadu, this new moon closes the old lunar year; the very next sunrise is Chaitra Shukla Pratipada — Gudi Padwa and Ugadi — when a new Samvatsara begins. So the day carries a settling-of-accounts feel. Ancestors are remembered with tarpan, an offering of water mixed with black sesame seeds (til), so the year does not turn with unpaid pitru-rina (debt to the forefathers). Shiva temples count Amavasya among the Pancha Parva — five festive days each month — and many host Tirthavari Utsavam, a ritual bath of the deity in sacred water. If the tithi falls on a Monday it is honoured as Somvati Amavasya; on Saturday, as Shani Amavasya, when remedies for Shani and Kalasarpa Dosha are preferred.
