Diwali

The five days

The sequence is fixed by tithi and runs from the thirteenth of the dark fortnight to the second of the bright fortnight that follows.

• Dhanteras (Dhanatrayodashi) — Trayodashi. Purchase of metal, and Dhanvantari worship.
• Naraka Chaturdashi — Chaturdashi. The pre-dawn oil bath, and the day most prominently observed in Telugu households.
• Amavasya — Lakshmi Pooja in the evening, and the lamps.
• Bali Padyami / Govardhan — Padyami of the bright fortnight.
• Bhai Dooj (Bhagini Hasta Bhojanam) — Vidiya.

Lakshmi Pooja timing

The pooja is performed after sunset on Amavasya, and the window is usually stated in terms of Pradosh Kaal — the period following sunset — with the Sthir Lagna consideration used to narrow it further. Because it depends on sunset, the window is local: a Hyderabad timing is not a Delhi timing.

Amavasya tithi does not align neatly with the civil day, and in some years it spans two evenings or ends before the evening. That is why the date of Lakshmi Pooja occasionally differs between published calendars, and why a specific year's timing should come from a current panchangam computed for your location rather than from a general rule.

At home

The customary preparations are cleaning the house in the days before, the threshold muggu, lamps at the entrance and around the house on Amavasya evening, and new clothes. Lakshmi is worshipped with Kubera in many households, and account books or the tools of a family business are placed before the shrine where that is the practice.

In Telugu households Naraka Chaturdashi — with its pre-dawn oil bath and the lamps of that evening — often carries as much or more weight than the Amavasya pooja, which is one of the more visible differences from North Indian observance.