Diwali Runs Five Days From Dhanteras to Bhai Dooj, and UNESCO Put Deepavali on Its Heritage List on 10 December 2025

Diwali falls on Sunday, 8 November 2026, according to the holiday list the Department of Personnel and Training issued for central government offices. The festival runs five days, and since 10 December 2025 it has been on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

UNESCO’s committee made the inscription during its twentieth session, held in New Delhi from 8 to 13 December 2025. Deepavali is the sixteenth element from India on UNESCO’s lists of intangible heritage, and it was entered under the domain “Social practices, rituals and festive events.”

The name Deepavali is usually explained as a row of lamps. National Geographic Kids says it comes from the clay lamps people light outside their homes. What the lamps stand for depends on the day, the region and the faith of the household.

The dates for 2026

Only one date appears in an official order, the Government of India’s holiday list. A memorandum of 3 July 2025 (F.No. 12/2/2023-JCA) puts Diwali (Deepavali) on Sunday, 8 November, which is Kartika 17 in the Saka calendar. It lists Dussehra on Tuesday, 20 October, 19 days earlier, and Guru Nanak’s birthday on Tuesday, 24 November.

Where a state keeps the festival a day early, on Naraka Chaturdasi, the memorandum lets central offices there take the Deepavali holiday on that day instead, if it is the only Diwali holiday the state itself declares.

The other days are not on the central list. Dekho Panchang, a calendar site, puts Dhanteras on Friday, 6 November, the Hare Krishna Mandir’s schedule gives Govardhan Puja as Wednesday, 10 November, and the Ministry of Tourism’s Incredible India page gives Bhai Dooj as Wednesday, 11 November.

Day one, Dhanteras: a physician, a lamp for Yama and a small purchase

Dhanteras opens the festival on the thirteenth day of the dark half of the lunar month. Families clean their homes, and the Incredible India page describes the day as one of auspicious purchases and busy markets. Dekho Panchang lists a small item of gold, silver or steel, or a kitchen utensil, as the customary buy.

Two stories are attached to the day. In the first, the physician Dhanvantari rises from the ocean during the churning of the ocean of milk, holding a golden vessel of amrita (the nectar of immortality) and the body of knowledge called Ayurveda. Dekho Panchang says Ayurvedic circles therefore observe the day as Dhanvantari Jayanti.

In the second, which the same page attributes to the Skanda Purana, a young king named Hima is foretold to die of a snakebite on the fourth night after his wedding. His wife piles gold and silver at the threshold, lights lamps around it and stays awake beside him, singing. When Yama, the god of death, arrives at midnight in the form of a serpent, the glare blinds him and he leaves at dawn without the king. The practice of lighting a ghee lamp at the main door at sunset, facing south, is the custom that remembers that night.

Day two, Naraka Chaturdashi: the day Krishna freed the captives

The second day falls on the fourteenth day of the dark half. ISKCON Bangalore’s page describes it as the day Krishna ended the terror of the demon Narakasura, and the Incredible India page says the south honours that victory.

In the account ISKCON Bangalore draws from Srila Prabhupada’s commentary, Narakasura, a son of the earth, had seized the earrings of Aditi and the umbrella of Varuna. Indra appealed to Krishna at Dvaraka, and Krishna flew to the demon’s fortified city on Garuda with his wife Satyabhama. He broke through its defences with the Sudarshana chakra and killed Narakasura. In the palace he found 16,100 captive princesses and freed them.

The day is kept differently in the north and the south. The ISKCON page says the north calls it Choti Deepavali, holds the festivities at night, and in some places worships Ganesha or burns an effigy of Narakasura. In the south the day is celebrated in the morning: people wake early, bathe with ubtan (a paste of natural ingredients), put a mix of kumkum and oil on the forehead and pray to Krishna.

Hinduism Today’s description of Dipavali in the Tamil month of Aippasi adds a dawn oil bath that is counted as a bath in the Ganga, gifts of new clothes and, in Chennai, especially heavy fireworks.

Day three, Lakshmi Puja, and the stories each region ties to the same night

The third day falls on the new moon and is the main day of the festival. Families perform Lakshmi puja to seek the goddess’s blessings for wealth and success, the Incredible India page says. Dekho Panchang tells the day’s story this way: Lakshmi emerged from the same churning of the ocean, two days after Dhanvantari, and on the new moon night she chose Vishnu and garlanded him. Dhanteras, in that telling, is preparation for welcoming her.

In the north, devotees hold that the lamps recall Rama’s return to Ayodhya after fourteen years of exile and his victory over Ravana. The Ramayana tells that story. Ayodhya marks the occasion with Deepotsav on the ghats of the Sarayu. Guinness World Records lists the largest display of oil lamps as 26,17,215 lamps (about 2.6 million), lit at Deepotsav ‘25 on 19 October 2025 by the Uttar Pradesh Department of Tourism and Dr Rammanohar Lohia Avadh University.

In Bengal the new moon night belongs to Kali. Outlook Traveller says Kali Puja coincides with Diwali in Bengal, Odisha and Assam but centres on the goddess Kali instead of Lakshmi. Kolkata is where the festival is most visible, according to the Incredible India page, and devotees there pray at sites such as the Dakshineswar and Kalighat temples and treat midnight as the most sacred hour. Dakshineswar was founded by Rani Rashmoni, Outlook Traveller adds. Families light fourteen lamps the day before, on Bhoot Chaturdashi, and the idols are made in Kumartuli, the potters’ quarter in north Kolkata.

Western India ties the day to King Bali, and the Incredible India page says Diwali there celebrates Vishnu sending Bali to rule the netherworld. Hinduism Today gives the story behind it: Vishnu, as the dwarf Vamana, asks Bali for as much land as he can cover in three steps, takes the earth and the sky in two, and receives Bali’s own head as the place for the third. The day is kept in memory of the king’s humility.

Written records of the festival go back at least to the 11th century. The Incredible India page names the Persian scholar Al Biruni of that century and the 15th-century Venetian merchant Niccolò de’ Conti as travellers who documented it.

Day four, Govardhan Puja and the mountain of food

In some traditions the fourth day is the start of a new year. National Geographic Kids calls it the first day of the new year, when friends and relatives visit with gifts and good wishes, and the Hare Krishna Mandir says it often coincides with the Gujarati New Year.

Its story, as the Hare Krishna Mandir tells it from the Tenth Canto of the Bhagavata Purana, begins with Krishna advising the people of Vrindavan, who were preparing a sacrifice to Indra, to worship Govardhan Hill instead, for the land and cows that sustain them. Indra sent torrential rain. Krishna lifted the hill on his little finger like an umbrella, and it sheltered the villagers and their animals for seven days until Indra recognised his mistake and asked forgiveness.

The ritual that follows from it is Annakut, “mountain of food.” Devotees stack grains, ghee, sweets and milk preparations in the shape of a small hill, offer them to Krishna and distribute them as prasad. The same page describes the worship of cows on the day.

Day five, Bhai Dooj and the sister’s tilak

The last day falls on the second day after the new moon, and the Incredible India page describes it as dedicated to brothers and sisters. Sisters perform aarti, a ritual with a lit lamp, and apply a tika to the brother’s forehead as a prayer for a long and healthy life. Brothers answer with gifts.

Two origin stories are given. In one, Yama visits his sister Yami, who applies a tilak to his forehead, and he promises freedom from the fear of death and hell to any man whose sister does the same on this day. In the other, Krishna visits his sister Subhadra after killing Narakasura, and she welcomes him with aarti, tilak, flowers and sweets.

The names change by state. Maharashtra calls it Bhav bij, and the brother bites a bitter fruit called karith before the tilak. West Bengal’s Bhai Ponta has the sister fasting until the ceremony is done. Bihar’s Yama Dwitiya begins with sisters cursing their brothers, after which they prick their own tongues in penance and ask forgiveness, a gesture the page says is believed to protect the brothers from Yama.

Sikhs and Jains keep the same night for their own reasons

Sikhs mark the night as Bandi Chhor Divas, the day of the liberator. The Incredible India page says the festival in Amritsar marks the liberation of Guru Hargobind, the sixth Guru in the line Guru Nanak began, and the All About Sikhs account tells the story. Guru Hargobind was held in Gwalior Fort. When the order came to release him, he refused to leave unless the other imprisoned princes were freed too. Emperor Jahangir agreed that anyone who could hold on to the Guru’s cloak could go, and the Guru had a cloak made with 52 corners so that 52 princes could walk out with him. Sikhs mark the day with lights in gurdwaras and homes, and the page says a Gurdwara Bandi Chhor stands at the site of his detention.

At the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Tribune reported in November 2020 that the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, which runs the shrine, had halved the fireworks display from its old 30 minutes in 2017, and that year’s show lasted about 5 to 7 minutes with low-decibel, low-smoke crackers.

For Jains the night is the anniversary of Mahavira’s nirvana, his final liberation. The JAINA newsletter places it at Pavapuri on a moonless night in 527 BCE by the Jain count. With no light from the moon or the gods, the Gana kings lit lamps to keep the light of their teacher’s knowledge alive, and the page cites the Harivamsha Purana, which says the gods illuminated the city with lamps. The page says Mahavira’s disciple Gautama Swami attained kevalgyan (omniscience) at dawn the next day, and that the Jain festival of lamps began from that night. Jains today light their homes and temples with clay lamps.

What UNESCO recorded in December 2025

The Ministry of Culture prepared India’s nomination through the Sangeet Natak Akademi, after consultations with practitioners, artisans, agrarian communities, diaspora groups, individuals with special needs, transgender communities, cultural organisations and tradition bearers. The Press Information Bureau release of 10 December 2025 lists the practices as lighting diyas, rangoli, traditional crafts, rituals, community gatherings and the passing of knowledge between generations.

The release also lists the livelihoods around the festival: potters, rangoli artists, sweet-makers, florists and craftspeople. The inscription was adopted at the Red Fort in the presence of delegates from 194 Member States, and Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat told them the festival embodies the verse “Tamso Ma Jyotirgamaya,” the movement from darkness to light. He also named the diaspora in Southeast Asia, Africa, the Gulf, Europe and the Caribbean as carriers of the tradition.

UNESCO’s own announcement quotes Tim Curtis, director of its regional office for South Asia, on what the inscription recognises: “It unites people across India and the global diaspora.”