ನರಕ ಚತುರ್ದಶಿ | Naraka Chaturdashi

Naraka Chaturdashi is the fourteenth tithi of the dark fortnight of Ashwina and the first full day of Deepavali as Karnataka keeps it. Its whole character comes from one detail of timing: the observance belongs to the last dark hour of the night, not to the day that follows.

Arunodaya, and why the date can differ

The reference moment for this day is arunodaya, the reddening before dawn, reckoned as the last four ghatikas before sunrise, a little over an hour and a half. The day that carries Naraka Chaturdashi is the day during whose arunodaya Chaturdashi is running.

That is not the same as the sunrise rule, and the two part company often. Chaturdashi may be running through the dark before dawn and end a few minutes after the sun is up, in which case both rules agree. But it may also end between arunodaya and sunrise, so that the morning belongs to Chaturdashi in the dark and to Amavasya in the light. A calendar that prints only the sunrise tithi puts the day elsewhere, and this is the commonest reason for two households in the same street bathing on different mornings.

The rule is not arbitrary. The rite of the day is the bath, and the bath is prescribed before sunrise. Fixing the day by the moment the rite must be performed at is the same principle that puts a shraddha on the aparahna tithi: see Mahalaya Amavasya. Two days later, Lakshmi Puja is fixed by a third moment, pradosha, the hours after sunset. Three observances in one week, three different reference moments, and a reader who understands why will never again be surprised that two almanacs disagree.

Abhyanga snana

The observance is the abhyanga snana, the oil bath, taken in the dark. The household is woken well before dawn. Sesame oil is warmed and rubbed into the head and body, often by an elder, and then washed off with a paste of herbs and pulses. In Karnataka the bath is preceded on the previous evening by the filling of the water vessels, the neeru tumbuva habba, when the copper boiler and the vessels are scrubbed, whitewashed, marked with lime and kumkum, decorated and filled, and the water is heated for the morning.

The bath itself is treated as a bath in the Ganga, and in the strict form the first lamps and the first crackers of Deepavali follow it, in the dark, before the sun comes up. That is why the noise of a Karnataka Deepavali starts at four in the morning while a North Indian one starts at dusk. New clothes are worn after the bath, a lamp is lit at the door, and in many households a bitter fruit is crushed underfoot to stand for the demon.

The story

Narakasura, the son of the earth, held the region of Pragjyotisha and could be killed only by his mother. Krishna fought him with Satyabhama, who is the earth in another form, and it was her arrow that ended him. Dying, he asked that his death be remembered not with mourning but with lights and with bathing, and the day is named after him. Sixteen thousand women held captive were released, and are given as the origin of another story.

Other names

Gujarat keeps the day as Kali Chaudas and Bengal as Bhoot Chaturdashi, both with a quite different cast: the night is treated as one on which the dead and the spirits are abroad, and fourteen lamps or fourteen leafy vegetables are used against them. North India calls it Chhoti Diwali and treats it as the lesser first day of a festival whose main day is the following one. Tamil Nadu keeps it as Deepavali proper, with the same pre-dawn oil bath, and there it is the principal day rather than the first of several.