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Durga Puja Dates 2026 – Complete Puja Calendar So when exactly is Durga Puja in 2026? Short version the main five days run from 17 to 21 October, if you're going by the Bengal calendar that Kolkata and most Bengali households follow. Mahalaya, which kicks off the festive mood a week earlier, lands on 10 October. If you've already Googled this and seen two or three different sets of dates floating around, you're not losing your mind. There genuinely are two correct calendars here, and depending on which website you land on, you'll get one or the other without any explanation of why they don't match. We'll get into that properly in a bit it's actually a fairly interesting bit of Panchang logic once you see it laid out. For now, here's the calendar you actually came here for, explained day by day, along with what each ritual means and how people in Kolkata plan their week around it. Durga Puja 2026: When Is Durga Puja? Durga Puja 2026 begins with Mahalaya on Saturday, 10 October, and the core worship days  Maha Shashthi through Vijaya Dashami fall between 17 and 21 October, going by the Bengal calendar. That's the version most people mean when they ask "durga puja kab hai." But there's a second, equally valid answer. In the rest of India, where Durga Puja overlaps with Sharad Navratri, the calendar shifts by a day at the end Ashtami and Navami both land on 19 October, and Vijayadashami (which most of North India just calls Dussehra) falls on 20 October, not 21. Neither version is wrong. Both are reading the same lunar tithis, just through different regional conventions for deciding which sunrise a tithi "belongs" to. Bengal uses one rule, most of the rest of India uses another. It sounds technical, and honestly it kind of is, but the practical upshot is simple enough: if you're in Kolkata or following Bengali tradition, use the 17–21 October dates. If you're going by the pan-India Navratri calendar, shift the last two days back by one. Durga Puja Dates 2026 – Complete Puja Calendar Here's the full breakdown on the Bengal calendar, since that's what most Pujo-related searches are actually after. Day Date (2026) Significance Mahalaya Saturday, 10 October Pitru Paksha ends; Devi Paksha begins Maha Shashthi Saturday, 17 October Bodhon — the Goddess is ceremonially awakened, idol unveiled Maha Saptami Sunday, 18 October Nabapatrika Snan — the "Kola Bou" ritual bathing Maha Ashtami Monday, 19 October Pushpanjali, Kumari Puja, Sandhi Puja Maha Navami Tuesday, 20 October Final worship day; Durga's victory over Mahishasura Vijaya Dashami Wednesday, 21 October Sindoor Khela and idol immersion A small thing worth flagging, because it trips people up every year: plenty of Kolkata pandals see their first proper crowds on the evening of 16 October, a full day before Shashthi is "official" on the Panchang. That's not an error on the pandal's part — public festivities tend to start a touch ahead of the precise ritual timing once the idol's face is unveiled. If you're planning a visit around this window, build that extra evening in. Also and I'll say this more than once in this article because it genuinely matters tithi timings move around with sunrise and can shift by hours between cities. If a specific temple or family priest gives you a different muhurat than what's here, trust them over a general website. Ours included. Durga Puja 2026 Kab Se Hai? Depends what you mean by "starts." The ritual worship begins on Shashthi, 17 October. The festive season itself, though — shopping, decorations, that unmistakable pre-Puja buzz in the air really kicks off with Mahalaya on 10 October, a full week earlier. This is where most of the "kab se hai" confusion comes from, and it's an easy mix-up to make. Mahalaya isn't actually a Durga Puja ritual at all it's the last day of Pitru Paksha, the fortnight set aside for honouring ancestors. Families wake before dawn, often to Birendra Krishna Bhadra's Mahishasura Mardini recitation on the radio (still a thing, even now), and perform Tarpan at riverbanks and ghats across Bengal. It's a solemn day. Nothing about it feels celebratory. What changes overnight is everything after it. Devi Paksha begins the next morning, and within days the whole tone of the city flips markets fill up, pandal frameworks get their final coats of paint, and by the time Shashthi actually arrives a week later, Kolkata is already deep in festival mode. So if someone tells you Puja "starts" on Mahalaya, they're not wrong exactly. They just mean something slightly different than the ritual calendar does. Durga Ashtami 2026 – Date and Significance Maha Ashtami falls on Monday, 19 October 2026, and if you only know one Durga Puja day by name, it's probably this one — widely considered the most sacred of the five. A lot happens on Ashtami. Many devotees fast through the morning, sometimes eating nothing at all before offering Pushpanjali flowers given with mantras, usually in a packed, standing crowd. Kumari Puja is performed at several major pandals and temples, most famously at Belur Math, where a young girl is worshipped as a living embodiment of the Goddess herself. It's striking to watch even if you're not particularly religious, and it draws enormous crowds wherever it happens publicly. Then there's Sandhi Puja arguably the single most intense forty-eight minutes of the entire festival. It's performed at the razor-thin astrological junction where Ashtami tithi ends and Navami begins, traditionally tied to the moment Durga is said to have killed the demons Chanda and Munda mid-battle. Temples that observe it properly offer 108 lotuses and light 108 lamps in that window. I'm deliberately not quoting an exact minute-by-minute timing here, because Sandhi Puja muhurats genuinely vary by location and by which Panchang a temple follows get the precise timing from your local temple or pandal committee closer to the date rather than trusting a single number online. One more thing worth repeating: under the all-India Navratri calendar, Ashtami and Navami land on the same day, 19 October, rather than as two separate days like they are in Bengal. Maha Saptami, Maha Ashtami, Maha Navami and Vijayadashami Each day of the festival has its own personality, if that's not a strange way to put it about a religious observance. Saptami (18 October) is the quieter opener full worship technically begins here, centred on Nabapatrika Snan. Nine plants, tied together and dressed in a red-bordered saree, get ceremonially bathed and placed beside the Ganesha idol. People call the bundle "Kola Bou," and it's one of those rituals first-timers tend to remember precisely because nothing about it is what they expected. Ashtami, we've covered the emotional peak, Pushpanjali, Kumari Puja, Sandhi Puja. Navami (20 October) feels different again, almost like a release after Ashtami's intensity. There's less fasting, more feasting, and the dhunuchi naach comes out — dancers moving with a burning earthen vessel of camphor and coconut husk balanced in their hands, dhaak drums keeping pace. Mythologically, this is the day Durga finally finishes off Mahishasura after the extended fight. And then Dashami (21 October), which honestly hits differently than the other four. Married women take part in Sindoor Khela, smearing vermillion on the idol and each other — equal parts celebration and goodbye. Idols get carried through the streets and immersed in the Hooghly or other local water bodies, and there's a genuine sadness to it for a lot of families, even amid the noise and colour. Elsewhere in India, this same day is Dussehra, marking Rama's win over Ravana — same date, a completely different story attached to it. Durga Puja Calendar 2026 at a Glance Ritual Day Date Day of Week Mahalaya 10 October 2026 Saturday Maha Shashthi 17 October 2026 Saturday Maha Saptami 18 October 2026 Sunday Maha Ashtami 19 October 2026 Monday Maha Navami 20 October 2026 Tuesday Vijaya Dashami 21 October 2026 Wednesday Going by the all-India Navratri calendar instead? Push the last two rows together — Ashtami and Navami both fall on 19 October, and Vijayadashami/Dussehra lands on 20th, not 21st. Why Mahalaya Is Important Before Durga Puja There's something almost cinematic about the way Mahalaya works as a hinge point — one day you're in the reflective, ancestor-focused mood of Pitru Paksha, and by the next morning the entire emotional register of the city has shifted toward anticipation. For a lot of Bengali families, the actual "start" of Puja isn't a ritual at all — it's a sound. Birendra Krishna Bhadra's voice, that same recording played every single year for decades, coming through the radio before sunrise. People who couldn't care less about the football scores or the news will still set an alarm for this. It's less about religious observance at that point and more about a piece of shared cultural memory that everyone grew up with. Then Tarpan happens through the morning — offerings to departed ancestors, performed at ghats and riverbanks across Durga Puja Dates 2026 – Complete Puja CalendarBengal and it's a genuinely quiet, introspective few hours. Which makes what follows over the next week feel even more pronounced: markets get louder, pandal scaffolding starts coming down as the artwork underneath gets revealed, and clothes shopping (a bigger deal during Puja than most outsiders realise) hits its peak. Technically Mahalaya isn't one of the five core Puja days. Practically, skipping it from any explanation of the festival would leave out why the week after feels the way it does. Durga Puja 2026 in Kolkata Kolkata during Durga Puja doesn't really feel like a festival happening in a city it feels more like the city has temporarily become the festival. Pandals are the centrepiece, and calling them "temporary structures" undersells what actually gets built. Community committees pujo committees, as they're called spend months, sometimes an entire year's budget, competing to put together the most striking, imaginative pandal design, often built around themes that have nothing to do with religion at all. Global architecture one year, environmental messaging the next, sometimes just pure spectacle. North Kolkata, South Kolkata, Salt Lake each area has its own circuit of celebrated pandals, and it's genuinely normal for families to spend an entire evening just moving from one to the next, on foot, in a crowd. Kumartuli is where a lot of the traditional idols themselves come from artisans working for months to hand-build Durga astride her lion, flanked by Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesha and Kartikeya, mid-battle with Mahishasura. Interestingly, more households these days are also keeping smaller, permanent murtis resin or metal Durga and Lakshmi-Ganesh idols for the home puja room, as a way of holding onto that presence year-round instead of only during these five days. Food is basically inseparable from the whole experience. Bhog usually khichuri, labra, and payesh — gets served at pandals across the city, often free, and eating it there is treated as part of the ritual itself rather than just a snack break. Street stalls pop up everywhere the moment the festival starts, and some people genuinely plan their pandal route around which ones have the best food nearby, which tells you something about priorities. Cultural programmes run right through the five days music, dance, theatre and the dhaak is just constant background noise the entire time, in the best possible way. Rajdanga Durga Puja 2026 Rajdanga, in eastern Kolkata, hosts one of the area's well-regarded community Durga Puja celebrations, pulling in both local residents and visitors from neighbouring parts of the city through the main five days. Like most established Kolkata pujo committees, Rajdanga's specific pandal theme, artwork, and event schedule for 2026 haven't been publicly finalised at the time of writing — that kind of detail usually gets announced by the organising committee just a few weeks before Mahalaya, not months in advance. If a visit's on your plans, checking the committee's official channels or local Kolkata event listings closer to October is going to give you far more accurate information than anything written this early in the year. What's safe to plan around, though, is the calendar itself. If Rajdanga follows the standard Bengal dates — which most Kolkata-area pujas do — you'd expect the pandal open to visitors roughly from Shashthi (17 October) through Dashami (21 October), with the heaviest crowds falling on Ashtami and Navami evenings, same as everywhere else in the city. Worth bookmarking this page if Rajdanga's your local puja theme and schedule details typically firm up through September and into early October. What Happens During the Five Main Days of Durga Puja? If you're taking someone through Durga Puja for the first time, it helps less to list the five days and more to walk them through it like a story, because that's honestly closer to how it feels. It opens with an unveiling Shashthi, the Goddess's face revealed for the first time, pandals officially open. Saptami is the proper welcome, quieter, more ceremonial, built around the Nabapatrika ritual. By Ashtami, everything shifts this is the day most people who only show up once a year make sure they're there for, building to Sandhi Puja at that razor-thin tithi junction. Navami almost exhales after that more festive, more communal, less about fasting and more about dancing and eating together, as the story reaches its climax. And then Dashami says goodbye, colourful and a little heartbreaking at the same time, ending at the river. If you can only make it for one or two days, Ashtami and Navami evenings will give you the fullest sense of the scale. Dashami gives you something smaller and more personal instead. Durga Puja 2026 Planning Guide Planning around the actual dates makes a bigger difference than people expect, mostly because the crowd levels swing so wildly across the five days. Shashthi and Saptami mornings are, by far, the calmest window if you actually want to look at pandal artwork rather than just shuffle past it in a queue. Ashtami and Navami nights are the opposite the city at its loudest and most crowded, worth it for the atmosphere but plan on moving slowly. Getting around matters more than people think it will. Kolkata's roads genuinely seize up during Puja week evenings, and the Metro tends to be the one reliable way to hop between pandal-dense neighbourhoods without losing an entire evening to traffic. If you're travelling in from outside the city, book your stay and train tickets early by August or early September, ideally because prices and availability tighten up fast as October gets closer. Don't try to see everything. Kolkata has hundreds of pandals worth visiting, and trying to cover them all usually means enjoying none of them properly. Pick a handful based on what actually interests you artistic themes, traditional craftsmanship, a specific neighbourhood and go deep rather than wide. Wear shoes you can actually walk in for hours, because you will be, often in warm and fairly humid October weather. And be a little careful with the camera during Pushpanjali and Sandhi Puja specifically a lot of the people around you are there to worship, not to be background extras in someone's reel. Lastly: for anything time-sensitive, especially Sandhi Puja, check with a local temple or trusted Panchang closer to the date rather than locking in a plan based on one article written months ahead. Durga Puja 2026 FAQs When is Durga Puja in 2026? 17 to 21 October, following the Bengal calendar. Mahalaya, a week earlier, is 10 October. Durga Puja 2026 kab hai? Bengal mein 17 se 21 October. All-India Navratri calendar follow karte ho toh Ashtami-Navami 19 October aur Vijayadashami 20 October ko hai — ek din pehle. What are the Durga Puja dates 2026? Shashthi 17th, Saptami 18th, Ashtami 19th, Navami 20th, Vijaya Dashami 21st — all in the third week of October. When is Durga Ashtami 2026? Monday, 19 October. Considered the holiest day, with Pushpanjali, Kumari Puja and Sandhi Puja. When does Durga Puja begin in 2026? Shashthi on 17 October is when the ritual worship starts, though the season itself gets going a week earlier with Mahalaya. When is Maha Saptami in 2026? Sunday, 18 October the Nabapatrika Snan day. When is Maha Navami in 2026? 20 October in Bengal. Under the all-India calendar, it merges with Ashtami on the 19th instead. When is Vijayadashami in 2026? 21 October (Bengal) or 20 October (all-India Navratri calendar) — depends which tradition you're following, and both are correct for their respective regions. How many days is Durga Puja? Five core public days Shashthi through Dashami — though the wider festive window, counting from Mahalaya, stretches closer to two weeks. What's the difference between Mahalaya and Durga Puja? Mahalaya closes out Pitru Paksha and is about honouring ancestors, not about Durga at all directly. The actual Puja rituals only start about a week later, on Shashthi. When is Puja starting in Kolkata in 2026? Most pandals see real crowds from the evening of 16 October onward, even though Shashthi is technically the 17th. What are the Pujo dates for 2026? Mahalaya 10th, Shashthi 17th, Saptami 18th, Ashtami 19th, Navami 20th, Dashami 21st. When is Rajdanga Durga Puja 2026? Expected to run roughly 17–21 October, following the standard Bengal calendar most Kolkata pujas use though the committee usually confirms exact details closer to the festival. Is Durga Puja a public holiday? Yes in West Bengal, Odisha, Tripura, Bihar and Assam it's a formal holiday, and Vijaya Dashami/Dussehra is a gazetted holiday across most of India, NSE and BSE included. Why is Durga Ashtami important? It's the spiritual high point of the whole festival Pushpanjali, Kumari Puja, and Sandhi Puja, the last of which marks the moment Durga is said to have slain Chanda and Munda mid-battle.