Chhath Puja 2026: Dates, Sandhya Arghya and Usha Arghya

Chhath Puja 2026 reaches its main day on Saturday, 14 November, with the Sandhya Arghya to the setting sun that evening and the Usha Arghya to the rising sun on Sunday, 15 November — both dates computed by Bela’s engine. The full observance is a four-day vow, running from Nahay Khay on Thursday, 12 November to the parana after sunrise on the 15th.

The four days of Chhath 2026

Chhath is fixed to the Shukla Shashthi of Kartik — the sixth tithi of the bright fortnight, six days after Diwali — and the observance spans the Chaturthi to the Saptami around it. The engine’s festival table fires on the Shashthi and carries the following day with it; the first two days follow the classical sequence anchored to those verified dates:

Day	Date (2026)	Observance	Basis
1	Thursday, 12 November	Nahay Khay — the purifying bath and the vrat’s first satvik meal	Classical sequence (Chaturthi)
2	Friday, 13 November	Kharna — the day-long fast, broken at dusk with kheer and roti	Classical sequence (Panchami)
3	Saturday, 14 November	Sandhya Arghya — evening offering to the setting sun at the ghat	Engine-computed (Shashthi)
4	Sunday, 15 November	Usha Arghya — dawn offering to the rising sun, then parana	Engine-computed (Saptami)

The two arghya days with their basis are on the Chhath Puja festival page and the festivals calendar. The day’s engine-verified shubh window for 14 November is the Abhijit Muhurat, 11:44 AM – 12:27 PM IST in Delhi.

The two arghyas, and why we print no clock time for them

Chhath is unique among the major festivals in honouring the sun at both ends of the day — the setting sun on Shashthi evening, the rising sun on Saptami morning. That makes the observance doubly local:

• The Sandhya Arghya is offered as the sun nears and touches the horizon on 14 November — vratis stand in the water, the soop held up with its thekua and fruit, through the sun’s descent.
• The Usha Arghya is offered to the rising sun on 15 November, with the fast broken — parana — after the offering, in the day’s first light.

Sunset and sunrise are the most location-sensitive events a panchang computes: they move with longitude, latitude and horizon, by many minutes across India and by hours abroad. A single all-India “arghya time” would be wrong almost everywhere, so — as with moonrise — we publish the verified dates and leave the clock times to local computation rather than invent them:

• The Bela app computes both arghya moments for your exact ghat, not the nearest metro.
• Your city’s panchang page carries local sunrise and sunset on a rolling, daily-rebuilt window; as mid-November enters the window, the exact arghya timings for your city will be there.

For households observing away from their home ghat — a growing reality — the rule is the same as the fast’s: the sun you offer to is the one over your horizon that evening and morning.

What the four days ask of the household

The vow is one of the most demanding in the calendar, and its structure is worth planning around:

1. Nahay Khay (12 November). The vrat begins with the holy bath and a single satvik meal — the kitchen and grains for the festival are consecrated from this day.
2. Kharna (13 November). A full day without food or water, broken in the evening with the kheer-roti prasad, after which the strict 36-hour nirjala stretch begins.
3. Sandhya Arghya (14 November). The family and neighbourhood gather at the ghat by late afternoon; the offering is made through sunset.
4. Usha Arghya and parana (15 November). The ghat again before dawn, the offering at first light, and the fast broken with the prasad.

The sixth-day-after-Diwali framing makes the 2026 calendar easy to check: Diwali falls on Sunday, 8 November, and the Shashthi that follows lands on the 14th — a weekend this year, which spares many families the working-day strain the arghyas usually bring.

Frequently asked questions

When is Chhath Puja in 2026? The main Chhath day — Shashthi, with the Sandhya Arghya to the setting sun — falls on Saturday, 14 November 2026, and the Usha Arghya to the rising sun on Sunday, 15 November. Both dates are computed by Bela’s engine for Delhi. The full four-day vow runs 12–15 November, from Nahay Khay to parana.

What is the Sandhya Arghya time on 14 November 2026? The evening offering is made at local sunset, which differs by city — by many minutes across India and by hours abroad — so no single all-India clock time is honest. The Bela app computes sunset and the arghya moment for your exact location, and the city panchang pages carry local timings as their rolling window reaches mid-November.

What is the Usha Arghya time on 15 November 2026? The dawn offering is made at your local sunrise, with the fast broken after it. Sunrise is location-dependent for the same reason sunset is, so the exact minute comes from your city — via the app or your city’s panchang page — not from a national table.

What are the four days of Chhath? Nahay Khay (the purifying bath and first meal), Kharna (the day-long fast broken with kheer at dusk), Sandhya Arghya (the evening offering to the setting sun on Shashthi) and Usha Arghya (the dawn offering to the rising sun on Saptami), after which the fast is broken. In 2026 these run Thursday, 12 November to Sunday, 15 November.