Skandamata Puja 2026 Date
Skandamata Puja 2026 is on Monday, 23 March 2026, on Panchami tithi.
Dates are for India (IST). Tithi timings for your city are on the Skandamata Puja page.
About Skandamata Puja
The fifth-day Navratri form whose worship is said to give the devotee the double benefit of also worshipping her son Kartikeya — a quality unique to her among the Navadurga. She is shown lion-mounted with baby Skanda in her lap, and is offered bananas as prasad.
Skandamata is also called Padmasana because, alongside her lion, she is often shown seated on a lotus holding Skanda. Her complexion is described as Shubhra — pure white — and she rules the planet Budha (Mercury). In most images Skanda in her lap has six heads (Shanmukha), but at the old Skandamata Durga Temple in Varanasi he appears with a single head. Tantric texts link her to the Vishuddha, the throat chakra and the fifth in the kundalini sequence — fitting for the fifth night of Navratri. The standard dhyana verse invoked on this day (preserved in the Devi Kavacham section of the Markandeya Purana) describes her as lion-throned, lotus in two hands, with Skanda on her right thigh. Devotees offer bananas as her specific prasad.
