March 2027 Festival List: Holi, Shivratri and Every Vrat

March 2027 holds the closing weeks of the lunar year in the calendars that begin it at Gudi Padwa and Ugadi. Maha Shivratri opens it, Holashtak runs through the middle, and Holika Dahan and Holi close the bright fortnight, with Vijaya and Amalaki Ekadashi, two Pradosh evenings, a Monday Amavasya and a Sankashti Chaturthi between them. The Sun moves into sidereal Pisces on the second day of Holashtak, and that starts the Meena Kharmas. Below are all 13 observances by date, each with the reading that settles it, and then a note on which lunar month each day belongs to, since March is where Phalguna gives way to Chaitra.

March 2027 Festival and Vrat Dates (व्रत त्योहार)

Dates are for New Delhi, taken from the site’s panchang tables, which are generated from NASA JPL’s DE421 ephemeris with the Lahiri ayanamsa. The tithi instants come from the site’s tithi calculator, which is checked against 86 rows of those tables and agrees with all of them to within 1 minute. Sunrise, sunset and moonrise shift from city to city, so a town far from Delhi can see a row land a day earlier or later; the panchang tool gives your own town’s figures.

Phalguna or Chaitra? The Month Changes Inside March

Two month systems run side by side in Indian almanacs. Amanta calendars end a month at the new moon; purnimanta calendars, the usual north Indian count, end it at the full moon. In March 2027 each system turns over once, on different days. The new moon comes at 14:59 on Monday 8 March, and amanta calendars close Magha and open Phalguna there. The full moon follows at 16:13 on Monday 22 March, the afternoon of Holi, and purnimanta calendars close Phalguna and begin Chaitra.

So for the first week of March the two systems disagree by one name, for the 14 days of the bright fortnight both call the month Phalguna, and after Holi they disagree again. Maha Shivratri is the clearest case: its Krishna Chaturdashi is Magha in an amanta almanac and Phalguna in a purnimanta one, which is why the same night is printed under different months. Every row after Holi, the Sankashti and the Kalashtami, is likewise Phalguna in one count and Chaitra in the other. Amanta Chaitra does not start until the new moon at 05:21 on 7 April, just before that day’s sunrise, and the festival table puts Gudi Padwa, Ugadi and the start of Chaitra Navratri on the same date, so the bright half of Chaitra belongs to April.

Vijaya Ekadashi to Maha Shivratri

Vijaya Ekadashi is a vriddhi this year: the Krishna Ekadashi runs from 04:45 on 3 March to 07:24 on 4 March and is current at both the Wednesday and the Thursday sunrise. The table prints 3 March, the first, but some calendars keep the second morning, 4 March, and the Ekadashi list works through this vriddhi in detail. Mercury, retrograde since February, turns direct in Capricorn on 3 March.

The Shukra Pradosh Vrat is Friday 5 March, and Maha Shivratri follows on Saturday 6 March, its Chaturdashi holding the nishita midnight. That night is also the month’s Masik Shivratri, so the table lists it once rather than twice. Shaiva households keep it as a night vigil, and the Maha Shivratri page sets out the four-prahar puja.

A Panchak begins on the Shivratri itself, at 17:34, before sunset, and lasts until 11:19 on Thursday 11 March. The Amavasya of Monday 8 March falls inside it; a new moon on a Monday is the combination almanacs print as Somvati Amavasya. Mars, still retrograde, slips back into Cancer at 00:30 on 10 March, also inside the Panchak.

Holashtak and the Start of Meena Kharmas

The bright fortnight’s Vinayaka Chaturthi is Friday 12 March; Mercury enters Aquarius at 05:00 that morning, before sunrise. Two days later Holashtak begins. The site counts it as the eight days ending at Holika Dahan, 14 March to 21 March, and its muhurat engine records the custom as regional: kept in Punjab, Himachal, Haryana and much of North India, not generally in the south or in Bengal. Of the engine’s ten occasions, Holashtak closes only marriage and griha pravesh.

On Monday 15 March, the second day of Holashtak, the Sun enters sidereal Pisces at 06:55, after New Delhi’s 06:31 sunrise. The site prints that instant and not a Sankranti observance day. The same date opens the Meena Kharmas, which runs to 14 April; for it the engine closes every occasion except long travel. From then until Holika Dahan the two closures overlap, and four rows of the table fall inside both: the Masik Durgashtami, Amalaki Ekadashi, the Shani Pradosh Vrat and Holika Dahan itself.

The Durgashtami of Tuesday 16 March is the Phalguna Shukla Ashtami, the tithi from which Holashtak takes its count of eight. It begins at 10:51 on 15 March, a few hours after the Sun’s ingress, and holds the next sunrise. Because it opens mid-morning, calendars can start Holashtak on different days, and the Holashtak page compares three readings of the start.

Amalaki Ekadashi on a Guru Pushya Thursday

Amalaki Ekadashi, the Shukla Ekadashi both systems call Phalguna’s, is Thursday 18 March. It takes its name from the amalaki, the amla tree, which Vaishnava households worship on the day. The Moon enters Pushya at 05:07 that morning, 81 minutes before the 06:28 sunrise, and stays there until 03:20 on Friday 19 March. Read by the nakshatra at sunrise, that makes the Ekadashi a Guru Pushya day; counted by the vaar, which runs from sunrise to sunrise, the passage also touches the last part of Wednesday. The Guru Pushya 2027 page lists both readings for the year. The date also sits inside Holashtak and Kharmas; how a Guru Pushya is weighed against those closures is a matter for a family’s own almanac, and this page does not settle it. The Shani Pradosh Vrat follows on Saturday 20 March.

Holika Dahan and Holi

Holika Dahan is Sunday 21 March. The festival table’s rule is the Purnima at pradosh with Bhadra excluded, and the Purnima begins at 18:22, 10 minutes before the 18:32 sunset, so that evening has it. North Indian custom lights the Holika bonfire then and ties it to the story of Prahlada. Venus moves into Aquarius at 18:47 the same evening. Holi, the day of colours, is Monday 22 March. The Purnima still holds that sunrise, so the table’s Phalguna Purnima shares the date, and the tithi ends with the full moon at 16:13.

After Holi: Sankashti and Kalashtami

Only two rows come after the full moon. Sankashti Chaturthi is Thursday 25 March, when New Delhi’s moonrise at 21:44 falls inside the Krishna Chaturthi, and Kalashtami is Monday 29 March, its Krishna Ashtami holding that night’s midnight. A north Indian almanac prints both under Chaitra and an amanta almanac under Phalguna, as described above.

Related Pages

The month before is on the February 2027 vrat and festival list. For the whole year, see the 2027 festival calendar and the festivals hub; the March 2027 panchang has every day’s tithi and nakshatra. The year lists for Pradosh Vrat, Purnima and Amavasya carry the same rows in context, and the Sun transit 2027 page has every sign change of the year.