Somavati Amavasya 2026 Date

About Somavati Amavasya

A new moon that lands on a Monday — Shiva's own weekday — is rare enough that Shaiva temples mark it with a special rite called Amavasya Soma Pradakshinam, circling the lingam in the half-circuit reserved for Shiva. Married women add a thread-tying parikrama around the peepal tree.

The name joins two words for the Moon-god: Soma is both the Moon and a title of Shiva-with-Uma, so a Monday new moon is read as a double Shaiva alignment. The Skanda Purana traces the Somavara Vrata to the Moon himself — he observed it to recover the 'moonness' he had lost to a curse, and asked Shiva to let any devotee who kept it have their wishes granted. North Indian custom adds a separate ritual: married women circle a peepal tree 108 times, winding raw cotton thread around the trunk, praying for their husband's long life. The day also closes the ancestral cycle — Pitrus are believed to depart after Amavasya, so tarpan with sesame and water is offered at a river before the temple visit.