Dasara

The nine nights

Navaratri begins on Padyami of the bright fortnight of Ashwayuja and runs through Navami. The nine days are conventionally grouped in threes — Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati — though the Telugu practice of daily alankarams does not map neatly onto that grouping.

The alankaram tradition presents the Devi in a different form each day, with a corresponding naivedyam. The specific sequence differs between temples and between households; the Kanaka Durga temple at Vijayawada publishes its own order each year, and many families follow a local temple's sequence rather than a fixed list.

The principal days

Three days within the ten carry the most observance.

• Durgashtami — the eighth. Kumkumarchana and the principal Devi pooja in many households.
• Mahanavami — the ninth. Ayudha Pooja, in which tools, instruments, vehicles and books are placed before the shrine and worshipped.
• Vijayadashami — the tenth. Aksharabhyasam for children beginning their education, Shami puja, and the day traditionally chosen to begin new work.

Vijayadashami as a muhurtham

Vijayadashami is one of the days treated in the tradition as auspicious in itself — a sadhya muhurtham requiring no separate calculation for many undertakings. It is the customary day for a child's aksharabhyasam, for beginning a course of study or training, and for starting a business or a new instrument of work.

That said, a consequential undertaking — a registration, a property purchase, a wedding — is still normally given a calculated muhurtham within the day rather than being placed anywhere in it. The day's general auspiciousness and a specific chosen window are not the same thing.