Diwali 2027 (दीपावली)

• Lakshmi Puja — the Diwali-evening puja of Lakshmi and Ganesha
• Ganesh Puja — the invocation of Ganesha, kept before any new beginning
• Satyanarayan Katha — the katha of Bhagwan Satyanarayan, traditionally read to give thanks

Diwali is five days, not one. Dhanteras opens it, when metal is bought and Dhanvantari and Kubera are worshipped in the evening; Naraka Chaturdashi follows with an oil bath before dawn and a single lamp at the door. The third day, the amavasya, is Lakshmi Puja and the night the lamps are lit in full.

Lakshmi is not worshipped alone. Ganesha sits beside her at the puja, and in trading families the account books are opened for the new year in the same rite — Chopda Pujan in the west, and the reason the festival marks a financial year as well as a lunar one. The house is cleaned before her, not after.

Govardhan Puja comes the day after, with a mound of food built in the shape of the hill Krishna lifted, and Bhai Dooj closes the five on the second day of the waxing moon, when sisters mark their brothers' foreheads.

The same night is kept differently in different places. Bengal, Assam and Odisha worship Kali on the amavasya rather than Lakshmi, and in the south the festival turns on Naraka Chaturdashi and the killing of Narakasura rather than on the new moon that follows it.