Bhai Dooj 2026 Date and Chhath Puja Timings

When are Bhai Dooj and Chhath Puja in 2026?

Bhai Dooj 2026 falls on Wednesday, 11 November in India, with the tilak muhurat in the afternoon — roughly 1:10 to 3:20 PM for New Delhi. Chhath Puja follows as a four-day observance from Friday, 13 November to Monday, 16 November, with the main Sandhya Arghya to the setting sun on Sunday, 15 November.

Bhai Dooj: the sibling day that closes Diwali

Bhai Dooj — Bhaiya Dooj, Bhau Beej, Bhai Tika — falls on Dwitiya, the second tithi of the bright fortnight of Kartik, two days after Diwali. Its story is a gentle one: Yama, the god of death, visited his sister Yamuna on this day, and she marked his forehead and fed him; he declared that a brother who receives his sister's tilak on Dwitiya need not fear him. So sisters still place the tilak, brothers still bring gifts, and the Diwali week ends where festivals should — at the family table. In 2026 the Dwitiya tithi begins only in the afternoon of 10 November, which is why India observes the 11th: the aparahna (afternoon) of the 11th is fully inside Dwitiya. Some calendars printed abroad show 10 November — same tithi, different longitude.

The tilak muhurat and how the day is kept

The tilak is applied during aparahna, the afternoon stretch of the day — for New Delhi in 2026, roughly 1:10 PM to 3:20 PM. The ritual itself is short: a decorated thali, the tilak on the brother's forehead, aarti, a sweet, a meal together. What gives the day its weight is not the muhurat but the annual repetition — a fixed appointment between two people who may live cities apart. If sibling or family harmony is on your mind this season, that is a chart question too; family astrology is where we look at those bonds through the houses.

Why these two festivals share one page

Bhai Dooj and Chhath sit at the tail of the same bright fortnight — Dwitiya and Shashthi of Kartik's waxing moon, four days apart — and together they close the season Diwali opens. They are also, temperamentally, cousins. Both are festivals of relationship rather than spectacle: one turns toward the sibling, the other toward the sun that keeps every household alive. Neither needs a temple or a priest at its centre. And both reward the same quality — showing up at the appointed hour, year after year, for people and for gratitude. If the Diwali week is the season's noise and light, these four days are its settling, the part where the festival comes home to the family.

Chhath Puja: the four days, 13 to 16 November

Six days after Diwali comes one of India's most demanding and most beautiful observances. Chhath is kept on Shashthi, the sixth tithi of Kartik's bright fortnight, and it unfolds over four days:

• Nahay Khay — Friday, 13 November: the purifying bath and the first satvik meal, beginning the discipline.
• Kharna — Saturday, 14 November: a day-long fast broken after sunset with kheer and roti, after which a roughly 36-hour nirjala fast begins.
• Sandhya Arghya — Sunday, 15 November: the main day. At dusk, vratis stand in water and offer arghya to the setting sun.
• Usha Arghya — Monday, 16 November: the closing offering to the rising sun at dawn, after which the fast is broken (paran).

What Chhath asks, and why people give it

Chhath has no idol and no temple at its centre — just the devotee, the water, and the sun. It is offered to Surya, the visible god, and to Chhathi Maiya, the sixth, protective form of the goddess, traditionally for the health and long life of children and family. The sun here is not an abstraction: in Jyotish, Surya is the first of the nine grahas, the source of vitality in every chart, and Chhath is his oldest living festival. Families from Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh carry it wherever they migrate, and the sight of a city's riverbank or even a rooftop water tank lined with lamps at dusk on 15 November 2026 will be, as every year, quietly astonishing.

If you are observing away from home

Both of these festivals travel well because both are about people rather than places. Bhai Dooj needs only a video call and a remembered tilak time — the muhurat runs through the afternoon, so time zones can usually be matched. Chhath needs water and a clear horizon; communities now organise ghats in cities far from the Ganga. Astro Ratan can give you the exact sunset and sunrise times for your city for the arghya days, on WhatsApp, so the ritual meets the sun at the right minute wherever you are.