Gudi Padwa 2026, the timings, and the year it begins

Gudi Padwa 2026 falls on Thursday 19 March. Chaitra Shukla Pratipada, the tithi the festival is kept on, begins at 06:53 IST that morning and ends at 04:52 IST on 20 March, so the whole of Thursday carries it and the gudi is raised on Thursday.

That same morning starts Vikram Samvat 2083 and Shaka Samvat 1948. Which brings up the second question people arrive with, about the name of the year, where two respectable panchangs disagree with each other. Both parts are below.

The timings for Nagpur and Vidarbha

Date	Thursday, 19 March 2026
Sunrise at Nagpur	06:19 IST
Chaitra Shukla Pratipada begins	06:53 IST, 19 March
Pratipada ends	04:52 IST, 20 March
Sunset	18:23 IST
Rahu kaal	13:51 to 15:22 IST

The custom in Maharashtra is to raise the gudi in the morning, after the household is bathed and the doorway is drawn, and to take it down before sunset. This year the tithi itself begins a little after sunrise, at 06:53, which makes the sensible window the stretch from then until midday. Rahu kaal falls in the early afternoon, and by then the gudi is usually already up in any case.

Timings shift by a few minutes across Maharashtra. Mumbai sunrise is about twenty five minutes later than Nagpur's, 06:44 against 06:19, because it lies further west. The tithi timings are the same everywhere in India, since a tithi is a position of the moon relative to the sun, not a local clock event. Only sunrise, sunset and rahu kaal move with your town.

One small point that will look odd if you check it against a table. Pratipada begins about half an hour after sunrise on 19 March and finishes before sunrise on 20 March, so strictly it is present at neither sunrise. When that happens, the day the festival is kept on is the day the tithi actually runs through, which is Thursday 19 March. The Maharashtra panchangs I have checked for 2026 place it there, and if your family follows a particular one, look at that rather than at me.

What the gudi is

A bamboo pole, a bright cloth tied at the top, a garland of neem and mango leaves, sugar crystals, and a metal pot inverted over the end. It goes up at the door or on the terrace, facing the street.

The reading of it that has stayed with me is the plainest one: it is a flag put out where the neighbours can see it, on the first day of the year, saying the household has come through. Neem is on it because the year is not going to be sweet all the way through, and the sugar is on it for the same reason in reverse. The neem and jaggery eaten on the morning are the same idea in a smaller form.

Chaitra Shukla Pratipada is also kept as Ugadi in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, as Cheti Chand by Sindhis a day or two later, and as Navreh in Kashmir. It is the same tithi, kept differently.

The year that begins: Vikram Samvat 2083

The new year opens with the Sun and the Moon together at four degrees of Pisces, in Uttara Bhadrapada, with Saturn also in Pisces about five degrees ahead of them. Jupiter is in Gemini and will move to Cancer at the start of June.

Vikram Samvat 2083 is a thirteen month year. The lunar month that runs from 17 May to 15 June 2026 contains no solar sankranti, which by the standard rule makes it an adhik maas, an intercalary month inserted to keep the lunar calendar in step with the solar one. It falls as an extra Jyeshtha, so Jyeshtha comes twice in 2026. Practically, that means the festivals of the second half of the year sit later against the English calendar than they did in 2025, and that no wedding is fixed in the adhik month.

The year runs until the next Gudi Padwa, which falls in early April 2027.

The name of the year, and why two panchangs disagree

Each year in the Hindu calendar carries a name from a cycle of sixty. This is the part where you will find two different answers online for 2026, and both come from real traditions rather than from carelessness.

By the reckoning that most panchangs use, including every south Indian one and most Maharashtrian ones, the year beginning on 19 March 2026 is Parabhava, the fortieth name in the cycle. It follows Vishvavasu, which was 2025 to 2026, and it is followed by Plavanga.

Some north Indian panchangs, which count the sixty year cycle against Jupiter's own motion rather than against solar years, name this year Raudra, the fifty fourth name. The two counts drift apart because Jupiter's cycle of sixty is slightly shorter than sixty solar years, so the Jupiter based count occasionally skips a name and runs ahead. That is the whole of the disagreement. Neither is a mistake, and there is no need to reconcile them. Use the panchang your family has always used.

Tradition also assigns the year a king and a minister, taken from the weekday of two moments. Chaitra Shukla Pratipada falls on a Thursday in 2026, so Jupiter is the king of the year. Mesha Sankranti, when the Sun enters Aries, falls on Tuesday 14 April 2026, so Mars is the minister.

I will be honest about what that is worth. Year lord readings are the broadest statements astrology makes. They apply to a sixth of humanity by weekday and to the whole world at once, and they tell you nothing whatever about your own year. A Jupiter ruled year does not mean your year will go well, and it is not a substitute for looking at where the slow planets are falling in your own chart. If you want that, it is what a reading does, and the 2026 transits page gives the dates the year actually turns on.

What people do on the day

There is no long ritual required. In most Maharashtrian houses the shape of the morning is: an oil bath, a rangoli at the door, the gudi raised, a short puja at it, neem and jaggery eaten, and shrikhand or puran poli later. Some households read the panchang for the year aloud, which is the old form of the day and is where the year lord business comes from.

Gudi Padwa is also one of the three and a half muhurats of the Maharashtrian year, along with Akshaya Tritiya, Dussehra and the half at Diwali Padwa. On those days a new venture, a purchase or a first step is traditionally begun without needing a date chosen for it. That is a genuine convenience and one of the few times tradition says you do not need an astrologer.

Questions people ask

Is Gudi Padwa on 19 or 20 March 2026?

19 March, a Thursday. The tithi begins at 06:53 that morning and has ended before sunrise on the 20th, so Thursday is the day it runs through.

Is 2026 Rudra Samvatsara or Parabhava Samvatsara?

Parabhava by the count most panchangs use, Raudra by the north Indian count that follows Jupiter's cycle. They are two systems that have drifted apart over centuries, not a right answer and a wrong one.

Do I need a muhurat to start something on Gudi Padwa?

No. The day is itself counted as one of the auspicious days of the year in Maharashtra, and that is the point of it. If the thing being started is a wedding, that is different, and needs its own date chosen against both charts.