Durga Puja is the principal autumn festival of Bengal, Assam, Odisha, and the eastern Indian diaspora, observed across ten days that close with the immersion of the Durga murtis on Vijayadashami. In 2026 the formal Puja runs from Maha Shashthi on Friday, 16 October, to Vijayadashami on Tuesday, 20 October; the preparatory Mahalaya falls earlier, on Saturday, 26 September. The festival is anchored in the Devi Mahatmya (Markandeya Purana, 5th-6th century CE), which narrates Durga’s nine-night war and tenth-day killing of the buffalo demon Mahishasura. Although the textual story is Puranic, the elaborate ten-day community Puja with crafted clay murtis, themed pandals, and processional immersion is largely a 17th-18th century Bengal development now exported across India and worldwide.
The full ten-day calendar in 2026
The Puja’s days, in order:
- Mahalaya (26 September 2026): the Pitru Paksha closing day. The pre-dawn Mahishasura Mardini broadcast on All India Radio Calcutta, recited by Birendra Krishna Bhadra since 1931, is treated as the formal opening of the Puja season.
- Pratipada to Panchami (10-14 October 2026): the first five days of Sharad Navaratri. Pandals are built; the murtis are placed and the eyes of Durga are painted (chokkhu daan) on Mahalaya.
- Maha Shashthi (16 October 2026): the formal opening. Bodhana (“awakening”) of the goddess is performed in the evening; the murti is unveiled to the public.
- Maha Saptami (17 October 2026): the Nabapatrika Snan in the early morning: nine plants tied together (banana plant in centre with bel, ashoka, arum, jayanti, manaka, turmeric, pomegranate, paddy) are bathed in the river and brought to the pandal as the symbol of Durga’s nine forms.
- Maha Ashtami (18 October 2026): the highest day. Pushpanjali (collective offering of flowers) in the morning; Kumari Puja (worship of a young girl as the goddess) at noon; Sandhi Puja at the junction of Ashtami and Navami in the evening.
- Maha Navami (19 October 2026): the final day of worship. Maha Aarti in the evening; Bhog distribution to the community.
- Vijayadashami (20 October 2026): the immersion day. Sindoor Khela by married women in the morning; Durga visarjan in the afternoon and evening, with the murtis taken in procession to the river.
Mahalaya and the radio tradition
Mahalaya is the Amavasya that closes Pitru Paksha (the fortnight of the ancestors) and opens Devi Paksha (the fortnight of the goddess). In Bengal the day’s central observance is not at any temple but on the radio: at 4:00 AM Indian Standard Time, the All India Radio Calcutta broadcast Mahishasura Mardini, a 90-minute Chandipath (recitation of the Devi Mahatmya) interspersed with Sanskrit shlokas, Bengali narration and Kazi Nazrul Islam’s Bengali devotional songs. The original 1931 recording, narrated by Birendra Krishna Bhadra (1905-1991) with music by Pankaj Kumar Mullick, was so culturally definitive that an attempt to replace it in 1976 with a new recording by Uttam Kumar was rejected by listeners, and the original has been re-broadcast every Mahalaya since.
Households across Bengal and the eastern Indian diaspora set alarm clocks to wake before 4:00 AM to listen to the broadcast; the practice has carried into streaming services and is now also widely shared on YouTube.
What happens inside the pandal
The Durga tableau in the pandal is fixed in composition. At the centre, Durga in her ten-armed form (Dasabhuja) stands on the lion (vahana), her trident piercing Mahishasura who emerges in human form from the slain buffalo. To her right, Lakshmi and Ganesha; to her left, Saraswati and Karttikeya. The composition is Durga as the cosmic mother in the company of her children. The pandal frames this central tableau with thematic settings that vary every year; many Bengali Pujas commission renowned artists to design year-themed pandals (temple ruins, contemporary social themes, foreign monuments rebuilt in fibreglass, eco-themes).
UNESCO inscribed Durga Puja in Kolkata on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021, recognising the community-organised public festival as a heritage form.
The five core ritual moments
Distilled to the five most weighted ritual moments:
- Bodhana (Maha Shashthi evening): the goddess is awakened with mantras; the murti’s eyes, having been painted on Mahalaya, are unveiled to the public for the first time.
- Nabapatrika Snan (Maha Saptami pre-dawn): the nine-plant bundle is bathed in the river and brought to the pandal at dawn.
- Pushpanjali (Maha Ashtami morning): the community offers flowers collectively at the feet of the goddess, reciting the Pushpanjali mantras after the purohit.
- Sandhi Puja (Ashtami-Navami junction, 48 minutes long): the puja performed at the precise junction of the last 24 minutes of Ashtami and the first 24 minutes of Navami. 108 lamps and 108 lotuses are offered; the moment recalls Durga’s slaying of Chanda and Munda.
- Visarjan (Vijayadashami): the immersion. The murtis are loaded onto trucks, taken in procession with drumming (dhak), and immersed in the river.
Sindoor Khela and immersion
On Vijayadashami morning, married women in red-and-white sarees gather at the pandal for Sindoor Khela: they apply vermilion to the goddess’s feet and forehead, then smear it on each other and on themselves. The ritual is a farewell to the goddess, who is said to be returning to her husband Shiva’s house at Mount Kailash, and a celebration of marital well-being. The afternoon immersion procession follows; the murtis are carried to the Hooghly in Kolkata or to the nearest river, where they are immersed at sunset or after. The eyes of the goddess, painted on Mahalaya, dissolve in the river, and the clay returns to the silt.
Regional and overseas observance
- Kolkata remains the largest single concentration, with over four thousand registered community Pujas (Sarbojanin Pujas) plus private bonedi bari Pujas. North Kolkata’s older Pujas at Bagbazar, Kumartuli Park and Shovabazar Rajbari have running histories of more than a century.
- Assam celebrates Durga Puja with regional variants; the Kamakhya Temple at Guwahati observes a tantric form of the Puja running parallel to the Bengali public observance.
- Odisha observes Durga Puja with Cuttack as the centre; the silver tarakasi work on the Cuttack pandal backdrops is distinctive.
- Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore have large diaspora-organised Pujas at CR Park (Delhi), Powai (Mumbai), Ulsoor (Bangalore) and across the IT-industry residential clusters.
- Overseas: Bengali community Pujas are held in cities from New York to Tokyo on the same calendar; many use travelling priests and ship the murti from Kumartuli in Kolkata.
For what it’s worth, the most rewarding single day for a non-Bengali first-time visitor is Maha Ashtami morning in north Kolkata, when the Pushpanjali at the older bonedi bari Pujas (Shovabazar, Bagbazar) is open to outside visitors and the texture of the older household tradition is most visible. The newer Sarbojanin Pujas of South Kolkata offer the more ambitious thematic pandals; the bonedi bari Pujas offer the more austere ritual.
Common questions
Why does the Durga murti always include four other deities?
The classical Bengal composition places Lakshmi and Saraswati as Durga’s daughters and Ganesha and Karttikeya as her sons; the tableau is read as the mother in her family, briefly visiting her maternal home in the autumn from Kailash. The story frames the ten days as the goddess’s annual visit to her parents’ house, with Vijayadashami the day of her return; the immersion is the farewell as she leaves.
Is it the same as Navratri?
Navratri and Durga Puja overlap on the calendar (the same nine nights of Sharad Navaratri) but are different observances. Navratri across north and west India runs as nine days of fasting, garba dance and home worship; Durga Puja in the east runs as five days of elaborate public murti worship in pandals. Both end on Vijayadashami. The deity is the same, the form of observance differs.
Can non-Hindus attend the Puja?
Yes. The public Sarbojanin Pujas in Bengal are explicitly open to all; the city of Kolkata treats Durga Puja as a public festival. The bonedi bari Pujas at older households are also generally open to outside visitors during the four main days. Pushpanjali, Sandhi Puja and Bhog are participated in by anyone present.
A limitation worth noting
The specific timing of Sandhi Puja, Sindoor Khela, and the visarjan procession differs each year because they are anchored to lunar tithi junctions; the times above are the 2026 ones per Drik Panchang and may vary slightly by city. For pandal-specific schedules in Kolkata and elsewhere, the local committee’s published timetable is the only reliable source. For the underlying liturgy see the Wikipedia entries on Durga Puja and the Devi Mahatmya.
