Sita Navami 2027: Friday 14 May, Janaki Jayanti Date

Sita Navami 2027 (सीता नवमी), also listed as Janaki Navami or Sita Jayanti, falls on Friday, 14 May 2027. North Indian calendars place it on the Navami, the ninth lunar day, of the bright half of Vaishakh. In 2027 that Navami is the tithi in force at sunrise on 14 May and still in force at the middle of that day, and the same holds in each of the twelve cities tested below. The sections that follow give the tithi’s two ends, the readings that settle the day, and where the date sits against Ram Navami.

Vaishakh Shukla Navami: 21:18 on 13 May to 19:39 on 14 May

The site’s 2027 festival table carries no Sita Navami row, so the boundaries here come from its tithi code. At every build that code is compared with the 86 table rows that print a start and an end, and its largest disagreement with them is 1 min. By that working the Ashtami yields to the Navami at 21:18 on Thursday 13 May, well after dark, and the Navami yields to the Dashami at 19:39 on Friday 14 May, shortly after that evening’s sunset. Its length is 22 hours 21 min. These are single instants for the whole country; only the local clock of dawn and dusk shifts against them from one city to the next.

The month name causes no trouble this time. Calendars that end a month at the full moon and those that end it at the new moon disagree over what to call a dark fortnight, but they give a bright fortnight the same name. Vaishakh Shukla Navami therefore points to one stretch of days whichever reckoning your almanac follows. The same fortnight holds Akshaya Tritiya, which the table dates to Saturday 8 May, six days earlier, and it ends with Vaishakh’s full moon, Buddha Purnima, on Thursday 20 May.

Why Friday and Not Thursday

Two readings are run below. The first is the tithi at sunrise. The second uses one instant per day, exactly halfway between sunrise and sunset, as a test point for midday; it is not a madhyahna window and not a time for any rite, and no clock value is printed for it. The midday test is included because the site’s table dates Ram Navami by the tithi at madhyahna, and the obvious question is whether that rule could move Sita Navami. At New Delhi:

• Thursday 13 May (sunrise 05:31, sunset 19:03): Shukla Ashtami at sunrise; the midday test point falls outside the Navami
• Friday 14 May (sunrise 05:31, sunset 19:04): Shukla Navami at sunrise; the midday test point falls in the Navami
• Saturday 15 May (sunrise 05:30, sunset 19:04): Shukla Dashami at sunrise; the midday test point falls outside the Navami

The Thursday is out on both counts, since the Navami does not begin until hours after that day’s sunset. A printed almanac that marks the moment a tithi starts may still show “Navami” against 13 May; that entry records the late-evening start, not a second candidate day. When Friday’s sun comes up at 05:31, the Navami is already 8 hours 13 min old, it is present at midday, and it lasts 35 min beyond sunset. By the 15 May dawn the Dashami has taken over. One sunrise and one midday fall inside the tithi, and they fall on the same date, so the two rules give the same answer.

Twelve Cities, Each on Its Own Sun

The list runs from Jammu in the north-west to Guwahati in the north-east, with Patna as the listed city closest to Mithila and Lucknow as the closest to Ayodhya; Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Chennai cover the centre, west and south. Each cell shows the tithi at that city’s sunrise, then at its midday test point.

Every row reads alike, so there is no east-west split to report this year. The margins are wide. Guwahati, whose day starts and ends earliest, reaches its 14 May test point when the Navami is 14 hours 1 min old; Ahmedabad, near the western edge, reaches it with 7 hours 4 min of the Navami still to run, the smallest remainder on the list. In every city the Navami opens after the 13 May sunset and is still current at the 14 May one. A margin of hours leaves no room for the code’s 1 min disagreement with the tables to change a result.

One Lunar Month After Ram Navami

Rama’s birthday is kept on the bright-half Navami of Chaitra, and Sita’s on the same tithi of the following month. The 2027 table dates Ram Navami to Thursday 15 April by the tithi at madhyahna, and the daily panchang shows the Shukla Navami at that sunrise too. Counting from that date, Friday 14 May is 29 days later. The Chaitra side, with Navratri and the rest of that month, is set out on the Chaitra month 2027 page.

Sita, Janaki, Vaidehi: The Names and the Furrow

In the Valmiki Ramayana’s Bala Kanda, King Janaka tells the sage Vishvamitra how his daughter came to him: as he was ploughing a field, a girl rose from the earth in the furrow the plough had opened, and he named her Sita and raised her as his own. The Sanskrit word sita means a furrow. The epic also calls her Janaki, Janaka’s daughter, and Vaidehi and Maithili after Videha and its city Mithila, the kingdom it gives to Janaka. The three search names for the day, Sita Navami, Janaki Navami and Sita Jayanti, all mark the same birth anniversary.

A Second Date in Some Regional Calendars

Some regional calendars, including ones in use in Maharashtra, keep a separate Janaki Jayanti, sometimes called Sita Ashtami, on the dark-half Ashtami of Phalguna. That is a different custom with a different tithi, and this page does not date it. If your family keeps Sita’s birthday on that tithi rather than in Vaishakh, follow the almanac you already use.

How the Day Is Kept

Where the day is kept, the worship is addressed to Sita, often together with Rama, at home or at a temple, and some families add a fast by their own household rule. This page gives no fasting procedure and makes no claim about what keeping the fast or the puja does. For the order of worship and the hour at which to perform it, ask your temple or family priest.

Sita Navami 2027 at a Glance

• Date: Friday, 14 May 2027, by sunrise and by the midday test, in all twelve cities
• Vaishakh Shukla Navami (computed): 21:18 on 13 May to 19:39 on 14 May
• New Delhi, 14 May: sunrise 05:31, sunset 19:04
• Ram Navami 2027: Thursday 15 April, 29 days earlier
• Same bright fortnight: Akshaya Tritiya on 8 May, Buddha Purnima on 20 May

The whole lunar month is mapped on the Vaishakh month 2027 page, and the other dates of the calendar month are on the May 2027 vrat and tyohar list. For sunrise and sunset where you live, open the panchang tool; the festival hub collects the observances in the site’s tables.