Champa Shashti 2026: Khandoba Navratra in Seven Days

Khandoba’s festival is reckoned in tithis, not in days, and in 2026 the difference shows. Champa Shashti, the sixth tithi of Margashirsha’s bright half and the climax of the navratra kept for Khandoba in Maharashtra and northern Karnataka, falls on Tuesday 15 December. The navratra leading up to it covers six tithis, Pratipada to Shashthi, but this year those six tithis need seven mornings, because the first of them is still current at two consecutive sunrises.

A Pratipada Longer Than a Day

Margashirsha’s new moon comes at 06:21 on Wednesday 9 December, and the Shukla Pratipada begins at that instant. Sunrise at New Delhi that morning is 07:02, only 41 minutes later, so the 9th rises in Pratipada although the tithi is barely under way. It then runs through the whole of that day and night and is still current when the sun comes up again at 07:02 on Thursday 10 December; it ends only at 08:46 that morning, after 26 hours 25 minutes.

A tithi that holds two sunrises is called vriddhi, increased, and the daily table shows it plainly: Shukla Pratipada on the 9th, Shukla Pratipada again on the 10th. The Pratipada’s closing minute, like the Shashthi’s closing minute below, is computed with the site’s own lunar code rather than taken from the festival tables; that code agrees with the generated tables to within 1 minute on the 86 tithi instants where both exist. The opening minute is the table’s own new-moon instant.

The 9th is close-run, and the new moon is the same instant everywhere while sunrise is not. Using the sunrise calculation behind the site’s city panchang pages, Pune, the nearest of those cities to Jejuri, sees the sun rise at 06:55 on the 9th and 06:55 on the 10th: both inside the Pratipada with room to spare, so the doubled Pratipada holds there too. Further east and south the margin collapses. At Kolkata (06:04) and Bangalore (06:30) the computed sunrise of the 9th falls within half an hour of the new moon, which is too close for this page to say which tithi those mornings belong to. Check the panchang calculator or a local almanac for your own city.

Seven Mornings for Six Tithis

• Morning 1, Wednesday 9 December: Shukla Pratipada
• Morning 2, Thursday 10 December: Shukla Pratipada (the same tithi again)
• Morning 3, Friday 11 December: Shukla Dwitiya
• Morning 4, Saturday 12 December: Shukla Tritiya
• Morning 5, Sunday 13 December: Shukla Chaturthi
• Morning 6, Monday 14 December: Shukla Panchami
• Morning 7, Tuesday 15 December: Shukla Shashthi — Champa Shashti

Read down the list and the shape is clear: the second morning repeats the first, and every later morning advances by one tithi until the Shashthi. A calendar that opens the navratra on the first sunrise touched by the Pratipada begins on Wednesday 9 December and so keeps seven days of festival for six tithis. Household practice differs, and some families may count from Thursday 10 December instead, which gives the more familiar six. Either way the endpoint does not move. If you keep the navratra with a ghatasthapana at home, the family purohit or the calendar your household has always followed is the place to settle the first day.

Why the Shashthi Is the 15th (चंपा षष्ठी)

The Shashthi opens at 19:16 on Monday 14 December — the instant the Panchami of Vivah Panchami ends in the festival table — and closes at 21:19 on Tuesday 15 December. Sunset on the 14th is 17:25, before the tithi starts, so neither the morning nor the evening of the 14th belongs to it. On the 15th it holds both: sunrise at 07:06 and sunset at 17:26. By the next sunrise the table shows Shukla Saptami. However a calendar weighs morning against evening, the 15th is the only candidate.

Khandoba, Mani and Malla

Khandoba, also called Malhari and Martanda Bhairava, is worshipped across the Deccan as a form of Shiva, and his principal shrine stands on the hill at Jejuri, south-east of Pune. The story the navratra commemorates is told in the Malhari Mahatmya: the demon brothers Mani and Malla harass the sages, and Shiva takes the form of Martanda Bhairava to fight them, and the festival’s tradition places the victory over both on the Shashthi. That is why the navratra closes on this tithi.

At Jejuri the characteristic offering is bhandara, powdered turmeric, thrown in handfuls until the temple steps and the worshippers are yellow with it. Families who keep Khandoba as their kuladaivat mark the navratra at home as well as at the temple, and the details — what is offered, which days are fasted, how the lamp is kept — are a matter of family custom that this page does not try to standardise.

Subramanya Shashti in Karnataka

South of the Krishna the same tithi belongs to a different deity. In Karnataka it is Subramanya Shashti, kept for Subramanya, the god Tamil country knows as Murugan, and its best-known setting is the temple at Kukke Subramanya in Dakshina Kannada, which observes the tithi as one of its principal festivals. Readers who know the Tamil Kanda Sashti will recognise the pairing of Murugan with a Shukla Shashthi; that festival falls one lunar month earlier, on the Shukla Shashthi of Kartika, and is set out in Skanda Sashti 2026.

Between Vivah Panchami and the Kharmas

Champa Shashti sits in a tight corner of the calendar. The day before it, Monday 14 December, is Vivah Panchami, kept in Ayodhya and Janakpur as the anniversary of the marriage of Rama and Sita. The day after it, Wednesday 16 December, opens the Dhanu Kharmas, which runs to 14 January 2027; the custom that keeps Kharmas puts off weddings, griha pravesh and other samskaras until it ends, while festivals and daily worship continue through it. The Kharmas page covers that window, and Mokshada Ekadashi, on Sunday 20 December, falls inside it.

Dates and Instants

• Champa Shashti / Subramanya Shashti: Tuesday 15 December
• Margashirsha Shukla Shashthi: 19:16 on 14 December (table) to 21:19 on 15 December (computed)
• Margashirsha Shukla Pratipada: 06:21 on 9 December (new moon, table) to 08:46 on 10 December (computed)
• Navratra mornings: Wednesday 9 December to Tuesday 15 December, seven sunrises for six tithis
• Sunrise and sunset on the 15th (New Delhi): 07:06 and 17:26
• Vivah Panchami: Monday 14 December; Dhanu Kharmas begins: Wednesday 16 December

The year’s other computed dates are in the 2026 festival calendar; next year’s neighbouring Panchami is on the computed Vivah Panchami 2027 page. In Hindi: चंपा षष्ठी 2026: सात दिनों का खंडोबा नवरात्र.