Kartik Purnima

About Kartik Purnima

Significance

Kartik Purnima, the full moon of Kartika, closes the month that many households devote to early-morning bathing (Kartika snana), lamp offerings and the worship of Vishnu, and it also ends the five-day Bhishma Panchaka vow. The Kartika-masa-mahatmya of the Skanda Purana and the Padma Purana praise the month, and the Dharmashastra digests name its full moon as a chief day for bathing in rivers and sacred tanks and for charity.

Several traditions meet on this day. In Shaiva tradition it is Tripuri Purnima, recalling Shiva’s destruction of the three flying cities (Tripura) of the asuras, a story told in the Mahabharata and the Shiva Purana; the lamps of Dev Deepawali are lit for the gods in its memory. Some Vaishnava traditions connect the day with the Matsya avatara. Sikhs celebrate the birth of Guru Nanak around this full moon by their own calendar, and for Jains it marks the reopening of the pilgrimage to Shatrunjaya at Palitana after the rainy season.

How and where it is observed

The bathing is kept at Varanasi, Prayagraj, Haridwar, Garhmukteshwar and many other river towns, and at Pushkar in Rajasthan, where the camel and cattle fair culminates on the full moon. At Sonepur in Bihar a great fair begins near the meeting of the Gandak and the Ganga. In Odisha people float small boats of banyan bark, coloured paper or cork on rivers and ponds before dawn (Boita Bandana), recalling the voyages of Odia seafarers to Bali, Java and Sumatra, and the Bali Jatra fair is held at Cuttack on the Mahanadi. The Tamil Karthigai Deepam is a related festival of lamps but follows its own nakshatra rule.

Rituals

Typical rites are a bath before or at sunrise, worship of Vishnu and Shiva, gifts of food, lamps and cloth, and lamps lit on riverbanks, in temples and at home, with floating lamps set on the water at dusk in many places. Families who have kept the Kartika bath or the daily worship of tulsi through the month conclude the vow on this day.

How the date is fixed

Kartik Purnima is Kartika Shukla Purnima, the same month in both reckonings. The bathing and charity day is fixed by sunrise, the usual almanac convention for snana and dana: the day on which Purnima prevails at sunrise. If Purnima is present at two sunrises, the first is taken; if it touches no sunrise, the day that contains it. The evening lamps of Dev Deepawali are dated separately, by Purnima at Pradosh, and can therefore fall on the evening before this day, although the Dev Deepawali festival on the ghats of Varanasi is usually held on the Kartik Purnima day itself.

Sources

• Nirnaya Sindhu, Kartika-masa: Kartika snana and dana
• Skanda Purana, Vaishnava Khanda, Kartika-masa-mahatmya
• Odisha Tourism (Government of Odisha): Bali Yatra at Cuttack
• Rajasthan Tourism (Government of Rajasthan): Fairs and Festivals (Pushkar Fair)

Customs differ between regions, communities and families; this description is background, not a prescription. The date above is calculated by the rule shown on this page.