Kartik Purnima 2026 Date: Dev Deepawali, Tithi Window and the Krittika Full Moon

Kartik Purnima 2026: Date and Tithi (कार्तिक पूर्णिमा 2026 कब है)

Kartik Purnima, the full moon of the month of Kartika, falls on Tuesday, 24 November 2026. That is the answer the generated panchang behind this site gives, and the rest of this page shows the working, because the start and end of the tithi are the part a bare date leaves out.

The Purnima tithi starts at 23:42 on 23 November 2026, late at night, and ends at 20:23 on 24 November 2026. It lasts 20 hours 41 minutes in all, which is on the short side for a tithi. The end of it is not an arbitrary cut: a Purnima closes at the exact moment the Moon stands opposite the Sun, and the site’s lunation table puts that full moon at 20:23 on 24 November 2026, with the Moon in Taurus and in Krittika nakshatra. The tithi’s end and the lunation table’s full moon agree to the minute.

Why the Festival Falls on 24 November, Not the Evening Before

The festival table attaches a day-part rule to the observances that need one: Diwali, for example, is decided by the tithi running at pradosh. The Kartik Purnima row has no such rule, which in this table means the sunrise rule applies — the festival goes to the civil day whose sunrise falls inside the tithi.

On 23 November 2026 the Sun rises at 06:49 at New Delhi, and the daily panchang still has Shukla Chaturdashi at that hour; the Purnima does not open until well after that evening’s sunset at 17:24. On 24 November 2026 sunrise is at 06:50, the Purnima has been running for some hours, and it carries on through sunset at 17:24 before closing at 20:23. Only one of the two sunrises sits inside the tithi, so there is no tie to break.

The clock figures are worked for New Delhi. The start and end of the tithi are single instants and hold anywhere in India in Indian time; sunrise, sunset and pradosh shift with your longitude. A local panchang for your own town is the right source for those, and the daily panchang on this site will show any other date in the same form.

Dev Deepawali 2026 in Varanasi: Which Evening (देव दीपावली)

Varanasi keeps the evening of Kartik Purnima as Dev Deepawali, the “lamp festival of the gods”, when by the city’s custom earthen lamps are set out along the ghats of the Ganga and on the river itself. In the 2026 table it comes 16 days after Diwali, which the same table places on 8 November 2026. Because the Varanasi observance belongs to an evening rather than to a morning, it is worth checking the two evenings the Purnima touches against pradosh, the stretch after sunset.

On 24 November 2026 the festival row gives pradosh as 17:24-19:48, which is 2 hours 24 minutes from sunset. The Purnima runs until 20:23, so it covers the whole of that pradosh and is still in force 35 minutes after it ends. On 23 November 2026 the picture is reversed: the Purnima opens 6 hours 18 minutes after sunset, which is later than a pradosh of the same length could reach. That evening the lamps would be lit on Shukla Chaturdashi, not on the full moon.

So an evening observance tied to the Purnima at pradosh falls on 24 November 2026 this year, the same civil day the sunrise rule gives Kartik Purnima itself. That is what the computed figures imply; it is not the only reckoning in use. In Varanasi the date the city’s own panchang gives, worked for Varanasi’s sunset, is the one to follow.

Bharani or Krittika? Two Nakshatras, Two Instants (कृत्तिका नक्षत्र)

Two tables on this site name different nakshatras for this festival, and they are both right. The festival row gives Bharani. That is the nakshatra the Moon occupies at the instant the tithi begins, 23:42 on 23 November 2026. The daily panchang gives Krittika at sunrise on 24 November 2026. Overnight, in the hours between those two instants, the Moon passes out of Bharani and into the next nakshatra in the sequence. By the full moon at 20:23 it is still in Krittika. A page that prints a single nakshatra without saying which instant it means is describing one of these and leaving out the other.

The second figure fits the month’s name. Under the naming convention for the lunar months, each month takes its name from the nakshatra the full moon falls in or near, and Kartika is derived from Krittika — as Chaitra is from Chitra and Vaishakha from Vishakha. The match is not exact every year, since the full moon drifts across neighbouring nakshatras. In 2026 it is: the Moon is in Krittika at sunrise on the full-moon day and at the full moon itself.

The site’s nakshatra table gives Krittika (कृत्तिका) the ruler Sun, the presiding deity Agni and the symbol of a razor, and places it across Aries 26°40′ – Taurus 10°00′, straddling two signs. The fuller entry is on the Krittika nakshatra page, and the guide to the 27 nakshatras sets it in the sequence. Kartik Purnima itself has no nakshatra condition; the Purnima fixes the day, and the nakshatra is a fact about this year.

Kartik Maas 2026: Start and End in Both Reckonings (कार्तिक मास)

The answer to “when does Kartik month start and end” depends on which calendar you use. In northern India the purnimanta reckoning is standard, and its months run from full moon to full moon. On that count Kartika opens when the Ashwin Purnima ends, at the full moon, 09:41 on 26 October 2026, and closes with this Purnima at 20:23 on 24 November 2026. Kartik Purnima is the last day of the month.

The amanta reckoning, used in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, runs its months from new moon to new moon. There Kartika opens with the new moon at 12:32 on 9 November 2026 — the instant that ends Diwali’s Amavasya — and closes at the next new moon, 06:21 on 9 December 2026. On that count Kartik Purnima sits in the middle of the month.

The two systems give the bright fortnight the same month name, so the festival is “Kartik Purnima” in both, and so is Dev Uthani Ekadashi, which this table places on 20 November 2026, 4 days earlier. They differ only for the dark fortnight. That is why the same new moon can be called Kartik Amavasya in one region and Ashwin Amavasya in another; the 2026 festival calendar explains the split in more detail.

What Is Kept on the Day (कार्तिक स्नान और त्रिपुरारी पूर्णिमा)

Kartik snan. Households that keep the month-long Kartik snan — a bath before sunrise each day of the month, in a river where one is near — finish it on this day. Many families who keep it start at the Ashwin full moon, which this table places on 25 October 2026 as Sharad Purnima, and for them the Kartika full moon closes a month of daily baths. For the closing bath the daily panchang gives Brahma Muhurat at New Delhi on 24 November 2026 as 05:14-06:50, the stretch before sunrise.

Tripurari Purnima. In the Shaiva tradition the day is Tripurari Purnima. The name comes from the Puranic account of how the three flying cities of the asura Tripura, or Tripurasura, were destroyed by Shiva; the epithet Tripurari, “enemy of Tripura”, comes from that story.

Deepdaan. Lighting lamps and floating them on water runs through the whole month in the Vaishnava Kartika observance as well as at Varanasi. Some families also hold the Tulsi vivah at some point between Dev Uthani Ekadashi and this full moon, rather than on the Ekadashi itself.

Guru Nanak Gurpurab. Sikh communities commonly keep the Gurpurab of Guru Nanak, the birth anniversary of the first Sikh Guru, on the Kartik full moon. The Sikh community fixes the date by its own calendar and announces it through its own bodies. This page does not set the Gurpurab date, and if it differs from the Purnima computed here, the community’s date is the one that counts.

Timings for 24 November 2026 (New Delhi)

• Purnima tithi: 23:42 on 23 November 2026 to 20:23 on 24 November 2026
• Full moon: 20:23 on 24 November 2026, Moon in Taurus, Krittika
• Sunrise and sunset (New Delhi): 06:50 and 17:24
• Brahma Muhurat (New Delhi): 05:14-06:50
• Pradosh kaal (New Delhi): 17:24-19:48, all of it inside the Purnima
• Rahu Kaal (New Delhi): 14:46-16:05
• Nakshatra: Bharani when the tithi begins; Krittika at sunrise
• Yoga and karana at sunrise: Parigha, Vishti

The computed page for the following year is Kartik Purnima 2027, and the festivals index lists the rest. The festival 16 days before this one is covered in Diwali 2026 puja and muhurat, and how to read a panchang explains the tithi, nakshatra, yoga and karana columns used above. In Hindi: कार्तिक पूर्णिमा 2026: तारीख, देव दीपावली और कृत्तिका.