Kartik Month 2026: Start and End Date, Kartik Snan

Kartik Maas Kab Se Kab Tak (कार्तिक मास)

There are two Kartiks in 2026, a fortnight apart, and which one a calendar prints depends on where its month boundary sits. Hindi-belt almanacs close each lunar month at a full moon (the purnimanta reckoning); those of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and the Telugu states close it at a new moon (amanta). The opening and closing instants below are DE421 rows from the site’s lunation table, and the sunrises are New Delhi’s from the daily panchang.

Why 27 October and Not 26 October

The full moon that ends Ashwin arrives at 09:41 on Monday 26 October. New Delhi’s sun is up at 06:28 that day, more than three hours earlier, so the daily table gives that morning to the Purnima, and a calendar that names days by their sunrise still counts 26 October as Ashwin. The gap is not marginal anywhere: the site’s sunrise code puts sunrise in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Lucknow, Varanasi, Patna, Kolkata, Guwahati and Chennai at least three hours ahead of the full moon, so no town in this list has a calendar reason to start the month on 26 October. North Indian Kartik therefore opens with the morning of Tuesday 27 October, a Krishna Pratipada.

Sharad Purnima itself sits a day earlier still. The festival table dates it to Sunday 25 October because its rule tests the Purnima at midnight, and the tithi opens at 11:56 that morning; the dawn of 25 October is a Shukla Chaturdashi. So the festival night is 25 October, the one Purnima sunrise is 26 October, and Kartik starts on 27 October. Three dates for one full moon, each correct for the question it answers.

The amanta month opens the same way. The new moon after Diwali comes at 12:32 on 9 November, the instant at which the festival table’s Diwali Amavasya ends, and the morning of 9 November is still an Amavasya. The first amanta Kartik sunrise is Tuesday 10 November, which is also the festival table’s date for Govardhan Puja. At the far end, the Kartik full moon comes at 20:23 on 24 November, after that day’s sunset, so the whole of Kartik Purnima day belongs to Kartik in both systems.

Where Amanta Kartik Ends: The Morning of 9 December

The closing new moon is an early-morning one, at 06:21 on 9 December. At New Delhi that is 41 minutes before sunrise, so 9 December dawns on the Shukla Pratipada of Margashirsha and amanta Kartik’s last morning is Tuesday 8 December. The calendars that actually use the amanta month are further south and west, and there the margin shrinks. Sunrise on 9 December, from the site’s sunrise code:

In Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Pune the new moon lands more than half an hour before sunrise, so 9 December is a Margashirsha morning and Kartik ends with 8 December. For Nagpur, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai the gap is under the half hour this site wants before ruling on a sunrise tithi, and the local almanac should decide which month 9 December belongs to. The Margashirsha 2026 page picks up the next month from there.

29 Sunrises for Thirty Tithis

Both Kartiks hold all thirty tithis but only 29 New Delhi sunrises. In each, the Shukla Navami is current at two sunrises, 18 November and the day after, while two tithis are current at none: Krishna Dwitiya and Shukla Ekadashi in the north Indian month, Shukla Ekadashi and Krishna Chaturthi in the amanta one. The Shukla Ekadashi lost in both is Dev Uthani’s. Its window in the festival table opens at 07:16 on 20 November, after that morning’s sunrise, and closes at 06:32 on 21 November, before the next one. The table still files the festival under Friday 20 November; the Dev Uthani Ekadashi page explains why some cities keep it a day later, and takes up Tulsi Vivah.

Everything in Order, With Both Month Names

The lunations, the Scorpio ingress and the month’s festival rows in one sequence. Clock times appear only for table instants. The two right-hand columns give the month each reckoning assigns to that date’s New Delhi sunrise.

The split runs through the middle of the festival season. Karva Chauth, Rama Ekadashi, Dhanteras, Narak Chaturdashi and Diwali are dark-fortnight days, so a Hindi-belt calendar files them under Kartik while an amanta calendar files them under Ashwin. The site’s festival rules use the amanta names, so Diwali appears there as an Ashwina krishna-paksha Amavasya; they note that north Indian sources call the same day Kartik Amavasya, one month ahead. From Govardhan Puja on, everything sits in the bright fortnight, which is Kartik Shukla Paksha in both systems: Bhai Dooj, Chhath, Dev Uthani and Kartik Purnima carry one month name everywhere. For the full list of the month’s smaller vrats, see November 2026 vrat and tyohar.

Kartik Snan 2026 (कार्तिक स्नान)

In north Indian household custom, Kartik snan is a bath taken before sunrise on each day of the month, in a river or tank where one is close and at home otherwise, and the same custom pairs it with a lamp lit at the Tulsi plant in the evening. The span usually given for it runs from Sharad Purnima to Kartik Purnima, full moon to full moon, which puts its first day in Ashwin rather than in Kartik. On the New Delhi table the Purnima-to-Purnima stretch runs 26 October to 24 November, 30 sunrises, one more than the month itself because the Ashwin Purnima dawn of 26 October is included. A family that dates its start by the Sharad Purnima festival day of 25 October instead begins on a Chaturdashi morning; which of the two a household takes is a matter for its own almanac.

Gaudiya Vaishnava communities, ISKCON among them, keep the same full-moon-to-full-moon stretch as the Damodara month, with the Damodarashtakam sung and a ghee lamp offered to Krishna as Damodara each evening. Their calendars are worked for their own reference locations, so the day an ISKCON temple announces is theirs to give; this page does not reproduce it. If a vow for the month includes fasting, anyone with a medical condition should take it up with their doctor first.

The Sun in Scorpio, and the End of Chaturmas

Both versions of Kartik open with the Sun in sidereal Libra, which it entered on 17 October, and each holds exactly one solar ingress: the Sun crosses into Scorpio (Vrishchika) at 19:39 IST on Monday 16 November 2026, after sunset at New Delhi. That is the astronomical instant only. The day on which Vrishchika Sankranti is observed depends on a calendar’s own rule for an evening ingress, and this page does not settle it.

Kartik also carries the close of Chaturmas. The festival table’s Devshayani Ekadashi row, on 25 July 2026, is labelled as the start of Chaturmas, and the custom that keeps the four months ends them at Dev Uthani Ekadashi, which the table dates to Friday 20 November, inside the bright fortnight both calendars call Kartik. The Dev Uthani page counts the span and sets out the Vaishnava variant that closes it a day later. Kartik Purnima on 24 November, with Dev Deepawali in Varanasi, is covered on the Kartik Purnima 2026 page.

Checking Your Own Town

The two boundary mornings that can move with your location are 9 December in the amanta calendar and, for Dev Uthani, 21 November; the panchang calculator gives the tithi at your own sunrise. Other festivals of the year are on the festival pages. In Hindi: कार्तिक मास 2026 कब से कब तक, कार्तिक स्नान की अवधि.