ಮಹಾನವಮಿ | Mahanavami

Mahanavami is the ninth and final night of Navaratri. It is the night on which the battle in the Devi Mahatmya ends, and in Karnataka it is the day of Ayudha Puja, when the things people work with are cleaned, decorated and set aside from use.

When it falls

It is Ashwina Shukla Navami, taken at sunrise. The day at whose sunrise Navami is running carries it. Because Ashtami and Navami frequently share a date awkwardly, the Ayudha Puja can end up on a day that has already turned to Dashami by the afternoon, or on a day that was Ashtami at dawn. Households that want the puja performed while Navami is actually running will look at the tithi start and end times rather than at the date alone.

Ayudha Puja

An ayudha is a weapon, and the rite began with weapons: the Pandavas are said to have recovered theirs from the shami tree at the end of their year in hiding, and a king’s army was blessed before the campaigning season that opened after the monsoon. What it became is broader and more interesting. Whatever a household earns its living with is the ayudha now.

Vehicles are washed and marked with turmeric, kumkum and sandal, hung with garlands of mango leaves and marigold, and a banana stalk is tied at each side of the door. A lime is placed under a wheel and crushed when the vehicle is first moved. Machines in a workshop, the tools of a carpenter or a tailor or a barber, a farmer’s plough, a cook’s vessels, a musician’s instruments, a clerk’s ledgers and a student’s books are all gathered, cleaned, placed before the lamp and left unused for the day. In offices and factories the day is kept collectively and work stops. The rule that gives the day its shape is simple: the thing is honoured by not being used.

Saraswati is worshipped with the books and instruments, so the Saraswati Puja of Navaratri and the Ayudha Puja run together in most Karnataka houses. In Tamil Nadu the Ayudha Puja is kept on the day before Vijayadashami whichever tithi that turns out to be, which is why Tamil and Kannada neighbours sometimes keep it on different days.

What else is done

Where a chandi homa or a Saptashati parayana has run through the nine days, it is completed on Mahanavami with the purnahuti. Village goddess temples across Karnataka hold their largest offering of the year on this night, and where animal sacrifice was once made, an ash gourd, a coconut or a banana stem is now substituted at most of them.

The court festival took its name from this day: the Mahanavami Dibba at Hampi is the stone platform from which the Vijayanagara kings watched the ninth day’s review of troops, horses and elephants, and the Mysore Dasara descends from it.

A point of confusion

Mahanavami and Vijayadashami are two days, not one, and they are decided by different rules. Mahanavami takes the sunrise tithi. Vijayadashami, in most almanacs, takes the tithi running in the afternoon. A year in which the tithis fall awkwardly can put them on consecutive dates as expected, or compress them, and the two rules do not always move together. The tools worshipped on Navami are taken up again on Dashami, which is also the day a child is first taught to write.