October 2026 Panchang Calendar — Varanasi
Every tithi and nakshatra below is the one in force at Varanasi's own sunrise on that date — Kashi sits at 82.97°E, so a day can carry a different tithi here than in a calendar computed for another meridian when a boundary falls near dawn. The lunar month is labelled by the purnimanta convention this city uses.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Lunar months spanned | Ashwin–Kartika |
| Earliest sunrise | 05:50 |
| Latest sunrise | 06:05 |
| Longest day | 715 minutes |
| Shortest day | 673 minutes |
| Ekadashi days | 2 |
| Purnima / Amavasya | 1 / 1 |
| Mornings whose tithi differs from New Delhi | 1 |
Sunrise in Varanasi moves from 05:50 on the 1st to 06:05 on the 31st, and sunset from 17:45 to 17:18 — the day shortens by 42 minutes across October, which drags every kaal window and every Choghadiya slot with it.
On 1 of the 31 mornings this month, the tithi standing at Varanasi's sunrise is NOT the one standing at New Delhi's — a boundary falls between the two dawns. That is the whole reason this page is computed separately rather than reprinted.
The two times under each date are that morning's sunrise at Varanasi and the start of that day's Rahu Kaal, which is the eighth of real daylight assigned to Rahu on that weekday. Both move with the city, not just with the date: they are what a calendar computed for another meridian gets wrong even on the days it agrees about the tithi.
How far the nearest other sky is
Of the other cities computed on this site, the closest to Varanasi by sunrise is Lucknow, 264 km away, where sunrise runs up to 11.4 minutes from this one. Over the 365 mornings behind this calendar the tithi differs on 2 of them — a boundary falling between the two dawns. That is a small number and it is the whole argument: on those mornings a calendar reprinted from Lucknow would be wrong here, and there is no way to know which mornings without computing both.
Everything on this page is read at Varanasi's own sunrise, from its own coordinates — 25.32°N 82.97°E — so it is not the nearest city's calendar with a name changed on it.
Observances in October 2026
| Date | Observance | Tithi it is fixed to | What the day is |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 October | Indira Ekadashi | Ashwin Krishna Ekadashi | One of the twenty-four named ekadashis; the fast runs from this sunrise to the parana window after the next. |
| 10 October | Mahalaya Amavasya | Ashwin Krishna Amavasya | Sarvapitri Amavasya — the close of Pitru Paksha, and the day Bengal begins Durga Puja's countdown. |
| 11 October | Sharad Navratri begins | Ashwin Shukla Pratipada | Ghatasthapana; the nine nights run to Navami and close on Vijayadashami. |
| 19 October | Durga Ashtami | Ashwin Shukla Ashtami | Sandhi Puja sits in the forty-eight minutes straddling the Ashtami–Navami boundary computed on this site. |
| 21 October | Vijayadashami | Ashwin Shukla Dashami | Dussehra; Mysuru's jamboo savari leaves the palace on a muhurta of a few minutes within it. |
| 22 October | Papankusha Ekadashi | Ashwin Shukla Ekadashi | One of the twenty-four named ekadashis; the fast runs from this sunrise to the parana window after the next. |
| 26 October | Sharad Purnima | Ashwin Shukla Purnima | The brightest full moon of the year; Surat eats ghari on the day after it. |
Why the month is named what it is here
Kashi is the source of the purnimanta reckoning this page uses for it, and the Kashi panchang published from here has set the North Indian standard for generations. One local peculiarity is worth knowing: Varanasi keeps some festival timings by the sunrise at the ghats themselves rather than a district centroid, which is a distinction of a minute or two — the same order of difference this page carries against a Delhi almanac.
How a festival lands on a date
None of the dates above is stored. Each observance is held here as the rule that defines it — a lunar month, a fortnight and a tithi — and resolved against the computed panchang for Varanasi each time this calendar is rebuilt, which is why the same festival moves through the Gregorian year and why two adjacent cities can differ by a day. The lunar month name follows the purnimanta reckoning; the intercalary adhika masa, which repeats a month name roughly every thirty-two months, is detected and its festivals are attributed to the regular month rather than the leap one.
A day is marked by the tithi standing at sunrise. Observances that are settled at another moment — Janmashtami at midnight, Diwali at pradosh, Ahoi Ashtami at starrise — can therefore be announced by a temple one day either side of the marker here, and the table above says so where it applies. Solar festivals such as Makar Sankranti are keyed to the Sun's ingress instead, which is why they barely move.