ದುರ್ಗಾಷ್ಟಮಿ | Durgashtami

Durgashtami, also called Maha Ashtami, is the eighth day of Navaratri. It is the day on which the goddess is worshipped not as the giver of learning or wealth but as the one who fights, and it is the most strictly kept day of the nine in households that keep the whole stretch lightly.

When it falls

It is Ashwina Shukla Ashtami, taken at sunrise. The day on which Ashtami is running when the sun rises carries the observance, even if Ashtami ends soon after and most of the daylight belongs to Navami.

That last case is common and causes most of the confusion around these two days. Ashtami and Navami often overlap a single date awkwardly, so a household may find its Ashtami puja and its Navami puja falling on the same morning, or the two spread over three dates. The rule does not change: each day takes the tithi of its own sunrise.

Bengali practice adds a rule that ignores sunrise entirely. Sandhi puja is performed across the junction of the two tithis, in the last twenty-four minutes of Ashtami and the first twenty-four minutes of Navami. That is a window of forty-eight minutes fixed by the tithi boundary itself, wherever in the day or night it falls, and an almanac that prints only sunrise tithis cannot give it to you.

What is done

In Karnataka the day carries a Durga puja or a homa, and the recitation of the Devi Mahatmya, the Saptashati, is common. Households that perform Ayudha Puja on Mahanavami often use this day to clean and gather what will be offered: tools, machines, vehicles, weapons where a family keeps them, and the implements of a trade. Some households, particularly where Navami is short, hold the Ayudha Puja itself on Ashtami.

Fasting on the eighth is usual where any fast is kept at all during Navaratri, and it is broken after the evening puja. In much of North India the day is marked by kanya puja, in which nine young girls, and often a boy with them, are washed, fed and given gifts as the goddess in her nine forms. The custom is thinner in Karnataka but not unknown.

The story

The Devi Mahatmya has the goddess assembled from the anger of the gods to face Mahishasura, the buffalo demon, whom no god or man could kill. The eighth and ninth nights are the height of the battle: the demon’s generals fall on the eighth, and in the tellings that place it there, Chamunda emerges at the junction of the two tithis, which is the reason the sandhi is kept as a rite in its own right. The demon himself is killed at the end of the ninth night, and the tenth day is the victory.

Which Ashtami this is

The eighth tithi of every bright fortnight is Durgashtami to households that keep it monthly, and the eighth of the dark fortnight is Kalashtami, a distinct observance belonging to Bhairava. The one in Ashwina, in the middle of Navaratri, is Maha Ashtami, and it is the only one most people mean when they use the name without a month.