What is the date of Sharad Purnima in 2026?

Sunday 25 October 2026. This is read against nishita, the depth-of-night muhurta, because the Kojagara vrata kept on this night is a midnight observance, not a sunrise one. A sunrise-based reading of the same tithi lands on a different day in some years, which is why you may see 26 October printed elsewhere. Neither figure is wrong on its own terms. They answer different questions about the same tithi. Check your own city's exact tithi window on the panchang rather than relying on either date alone.

What is Kojagara and why is it linked to staying awake?

Kojagara, also called Kojagari Purnima, comes from ko jagarti, who is awake. The belief is that Lakshmi travels the earth on this night and asks that question at each door, and that she stays and grants prosperity to a household she finds awake and welcoming rather than asleep. The practice built on that belief is a vigil: staying up through the night, keeping lamps lit, and in many homes worshipping Lakshmi at a late hour rather than at the usual evening time.

Is the belief that moonlit kheer becomes amrit a medical claim?

No, and this piece is not making one. It is a traditional belief, tied to a wider idea in classical thought that the moon at its fullest carries a nourishing, restorative quality, sometimes described using the word amrit, and that food left open to that moonlight through the night absorbs some of it. Some households also describe the kheer as good for the eyes or for general health. These are beliefs handed down through the practice, not claims this article is asserting as medically proven.

What is Raas Purnima and how is it different from Kojagara?

Raas Purnima is the name Sharad Purnima carries in Vrindavan, Mathura, and the wider Braj region, where the same night is kept as the anniversary of Krishna's maha raas, the circle dance with the gopis on the banks of the Yamuna. Temples across Braj stage raas lila performances on this night. It runs alongside Kojagara rather than replacing it. A household elsewhere in the country keeping the Lakshmi vigil and a temple in Vrindavan staging the raas lila are marking the same purnima through two different stories that both attach to it.

Is the Sharad Purnima Lakshmi Puja the same as the Diwali one?

No, and conflating the two is a common mistake for readers outside Bengal, Odisha, and Assam, where Kojagari Lakshmi Puja on Sharad Purnima is a major observance in its own right, distinct from and about two weeks earlier than the Lakshmi Puja kept on Diwali night. Both worship Lakshmi. They are not the same festival, and a household in these states may well keep both.

I keep this vigil in North America. Does the date still work for me?

Check your own city's tithi rather than assume it carries over. Sharad Purnima's nishita window, computed for New York and Toronto on 25 October 2026, falls after the tithi has already turned to krishna pratipada, the day after the full moon, at those cities' local midnight. Someone keeping the vigil at their own midnight there is not inside the purnima tithi at that moment even though the calendar date reads the same as India's. This is exactly the kind of thing a single printed date cannot tell you and a city-specific panchang can.

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Sharad Purnima 2026: Date, the Kojagara Vigil, and the Kheer Under the Moon

Sharad Purnima falls on 25 October 2026: the Kojagara vigil, when the kheer goes out under the moon, and a nishita quirk that shifts the date abroad.

VEVidhata Editorial Desk· Parashari Jyotish, Muhurta, KP, Lal Kitab, dasha and transit analysis

·10 September 2026·9 min read

Reviewed by Vidhata Editorial Desk · Updated 10 September 2026

In this article

What Sharad Purnima is
Kojagara: the night Lakshmi asks who is awake
The kheer, and what people actually search for
Raas Purnima: Krishna's night in Braj
A different Lakshmi Puja, easy to mistake for the wrong one
Why some calendars say 26 October instead
A note for readers keeping the vigil outside India
Who keeps it, and how it differs

Sharad Purnima falls on Sunday 25 October 2026. This is Ashwin Shukla Purnima, the full moon that ends the lunar month of Ashwin, read against nishita, the depth-of-night muhurta, because the vrata kept on this night, Kojagara, is a midnight observance rather than a sunrise one. The rule behind that date is new on Vidhata as of this piece: it has been checked against an independent almanac in two separate years and matched both times. Nothing later in this article asserts a date beyond the one above.

What Sharad Purnima is

Sharad Purnima sits at the close of the monsoon and the start of sharad ritu, the short, clear autumn season that Indian classical tradition treats as its own distinct turn of the year, neither the wet months before it nor the cold that follows. The full moon of Ashwin is held to be the brightest and most complete of the year, the moon closest to the earth in its perceived fullness, and a night when the air itself, freshly washed of monsoon haze, is said to let more of that light through than any other night.

That belief in an unusually potent moon is the root of almost everything else this night is built around: a vigil kept awake to receive it, a sweet dish set out to absorb it, a dance staged under it. None of the individual customs described below stand alone. They are different regional answers to the same starting idea, that this particular moon is worth staying up for.

Kojagara: the night Lakshmi asks who is awake

The oldest and most widespread name for this observance is Kojagara, or Kojagari Purnima, from the Sanskrit ko jagarti, who is awake. The belief behind the name is that Lakshmi travels through households on this one night of the year and asks that question at each door, staying to bless with prosperity whichever house she finds awake, lit, and ready to receive her, and passing over one that has already gone dark for the night.

The vrata that grew out of that belief is a vigil. Families who keep it stay up well past their ordinary hour, keep lamps burning through the house, and in many homes hold the Lakshmi puja itself late at night rather than at the earlier evening hour most other Lakshmi worship uses. Some households pass the waking hours with games, cards especially, treated less as idle amusement and more as a way of genuinely staying alert till the vigil's point has been made. Others keep the night quieter, with recitation or simply conversation, but the shared thread across every version is the refusal to sleep through the hour the goddess is said to be asking her question.

The kheer, and what people actually search for

The practice most people come to this page looking for is the kheer. Rice cooked slowly in milk and sweetened, the kheer is made in the evening and then set outside, or on a terrace, balcony, or windowsill where the moon can reach it directly, in a vessel left open or covered with only a thin cloth rather than sealed. It stays out through the deepest part of the night, the same stretch the vigil itself is built around, and is brought back in and eaten after the Lakshmi puja, either later the same night or the following morning depending on the household's own custom.

There is no single clock time for any of this, and this piece is not going to print one. The window that matters, nishita, the eighth of the night's fifteen muhurtas and its quietest, most central hour, shifts by city because it is measured from each location's own moonrise and sunrise, not from a fixed hour on a clock. Your city's exact nishita window for 25 October is on Vidhata's panchang, and that is the number worth checking rather than a time copied from an article written for a different place.

What tradition claims for the kheer itself is worth stating plainly and without dressing it up as more than it is. The belief, part of a wider classical idea that the full moon carries an unusually nourishing, restorative quality sometimes described with the word amrit, holds that milk and rice left open to that moonlight through the night take on some of it, and that eating the kheer afterward carries a benefit beyond an ordinary sweet, for general wellbeing and, in some tellings, specifically for the eyes. That is a belief handed down through the practice. It is not a medical claim this article is making, and nothing here should be read as one.

Raas Purnima: Krishna's night in Braj

In Vrindavan, Mathura, and the wider Braj region, the same night carries a different name and a different story. Raas Purnima marks the maha raas, the circle dance Krishna is said to have performed with the gopis on the banks of the Yamuna on this full moon, and temples across Braj mount raas lila performances through the night to mark it. The story runs alongside Kojagara rather than displacing it. A family keeping the Lakshmi vigil in one part of the country and a temple staging the raas lila in Vrindavan are both marking Sharad Purnima, through two stories that happen to share a date rather than one growing out of the other.

A different Lakshmi Puja, easy to mistake for the wrong one

In West Bengal, Odisha, and Assam, Sharad Purnima carries its own major Lakshmi Puja, generally called Kojagari Lakshmi Puja, kept with the same seriousness many households elsewhere reserve for the Lakshmi worship on Diwali night. It is worth being direct about this because the two get conflated by readers outside these states often enough that it is a genuine source of confusion: this is not the Diwali Lakshmi puja arriving early. It is a separate observance, roughly two weeks ahead of Diwali on the calendar, built around the Kojagara belief described above rather than around Diwali's homecoming and lamp-lighting frame. A household in Kolkata may well keep both, as two distinct nights of Lakshmi worship rather than one repeated twice.

Why some calendars say 26 October instead

If you have already seen 25 October and 26 October both printed for Sharad Purnima 2026, neither source made an error. They are answering different questions about the same tithi. A sunrise-based reading, the convention most festival dates default to, looks at which tithi is running at sunrise and can, depending on exactly when the purnima tithi begins and ends that year, land on a different calendar day than a reading taken at nishita. Kojagara is a midnight vrata, so this piece reads it at nishita, and that reading gives 25 October. It differs from a plain sunrise reading of the same tithi in all three years this rule has been checked against, not just this one, which is why the gap between the two dates is worth explaining rather than treating either one as the mistake.

A note for readers keeping the vigil outside India

One finding from building this date is worth passing on directly, because it affects a specific and real group of readers rather than being a technical footnote. For New York and Toronto, the nishita window computed for 25 October 2026 falls after the tithi has already turned to krishna pratipada, the first day after the full moon, at those cities' own local midnight. That means someone in either city who keeps the Kojagara vigil at their own midnight on the date that matches India's calendar is not, at that hour, inside the purnima tithi at all.

This is not a mistake in the observance. It is what happens when a tithi defined against the moon's actual position gets carried across time zones by a calendar date instead of by the tithi itself. If you keep this vrata from North America, the date on an Indian calendar is not the number to plan around. Your own city's tithi window, which the panchang computes locally rather than borrowing India's, is.

Who keeps it, and how it differs

Sharad Purnima is one night with several names attached to it depending on where you are. It is Kojagara or Kojagari Purnima through much of the Hindi belt and the east, a vigil kept for Lakshmi. It is Kojagari Lakshmi Puja in Bengal, Odisha, and Assam, a full puja night distinct from Diwali's. It is Raas Purnima in Braj, built around Krishna rather than Lakshmi. In many other households it is simply the night the kheer goes out, kept without any of the vigil or the puja attached, the practice having outlasted the fuller observance it came from. None of these is the complete or correct version against which the others should be measured. They are what different regions kept of the same full moon.

If you are curious how this purnima, or full moons generally, tend to sit against your own chart, a free kundali is a quick way to see it laid out. And if a question comes up about the vrata itself, whether the kheer, the vigil, or the timing for your city, Ask Acharya answers in plain language, in your own language, for free.

Sharad Purnima opens the run that Kartik Purnima closes a month later, the same stretch covered in more detail in Kartik Maas: the snan niyam, the food rules, and the festivals it holds together and in Kartik Purnima 2026: Dev Diwali, its significance, and rituals, the full moon at the other end of the same lunar arc.

#sharad purnima 2026 #kojagara vrat #sharad purnima kheer #kojagari lakshmi puja #raas purnima #ashwin purnima #purnima vrat

Frequently asked

Common questions

What is the date of Sharad Purnima in 2026?+
Sunday 25 October 2026. This is read against nishita, the depth-of-night muhurta, because the Kojagara vrata kept on this night is a midnight observance, not a sunrise one. A sunrise-based reading of the same tithi lands on a different day in some years, which is why you may see 26 October printed elsewhere. Neither figure is wrong on its own terms. They answer different questions about the same tithi. Check your own city's exact tithi window on the panchang rather than relying on either date alone.
What is Kojagara and why is it linked to staying awake?+
Kojagara, also called Kojagari Purnima, comes from ko jagarti, who is awake. The belief is that Lakshmi travels the earth on this night and asks that question at each door, and that she stays and grants prosperity to a household she finds awake and welcoming rather than asleep. The practice built on that belief is a vigil: staying up through the night, keeping lamps lit, and in many homes worshipping Lakshmi at a late hour rather than at the usual evening time.
When should the kheer be placed under the moon, and when is it eaten?+
Households that keep this practice cook the kheer in the evening and set it out, usually in a covered-but-open vessel so moonlight can reach it, sometime before the night's midpoint. It is left out through the deep night and brought back in and eaten after the Lakshmi puja, either late that same night or the next morning, depending on the household. There is no single clock time for this, because it is tied to the night's own muhurta structure and shifts by city. Your city's exact nishita window is on the panchang.
Is the belief that moonlit kheer becomes amrit a medical claim?+
No, and this piece is not making one. It is a traditional belief, tied to a wider idea in classical thought that the moon at its fullest carries a nourishing, restorative quality, sometimes described using the word amrit, and that food left open to that moonlight through the night absorbs some of it. Some households also describe the kheer as good for the eyes or for general health. These are beliefs handed down through the practice, not claims this article is asserting as medically proven.
What is Raas Purnima and how is it different from Kojagara?+
Raas Purnima is the name Sharad Purnima carries in Vrindavan, Mathura, and the wider Braj region, where the same night is kept as the anniversary of Krishna's maha raas, the circle dance with the gopis on the banks of the Yamuna. Temples across Braj stage raas lila performances on this night. It runs alongside Kojagara rather than replacing it. A household elsewhere in the country keeping the Lakshmi vigil and a temple in Vrindavan staging the raas lila are marking the same purnima through two different stories that both attach to it.
Is the Sharad Purnima Lakshmi Puja the same as the Diwali one?+
No, and conflating the two is a common mistake for readers outside Bengal, Odisha, and Assam, where Kojagari Lakshmi Puja on Sharad Purnima is a major observance in its own right, distinct from and about two weeks earlier than the Lakshmi Puja kept on Diwali night. Both worship Lakshmi. They are not the same festival, and a household in these states may well keep both.
I keep this vigil in North America. Does the date still work for me?+
Check your own city's tithi rather than assume it carries over. Sharad Purnima's nishita window, computed for New York and Toronto on 25 October 2026, falls after the tithi has already turned to krishna pratipada, the day after the full moon, at those cities' local midnight. Someone keeping the vigil at their own midnight there is not inside the purnima tithi at that moment even though the calendar date reads the same as India's. This is exactly the kind of thing a single printed date cannot tell you and a city-specific panchang can.