Vinayaka Chaturthi 2027 — Saturday 4 September
వినాయక చతుర్థి 2027
Bhadrapada Shudda Chaturthi · Ganesh Chaturthi / Ganesha Festival · Madhyahna Muhurat 11:15 – 13:46 IST (Hyderabad) — primary Ganesha Sthapana + puja window
Vinayaka Chaturthi 2027 (also called Ganesh Chaturthi / Ganesha Festival) falls on Saturday, 4 September 2027. Birth day of Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. 11-day festival ends with Ganesh Visarjan on Anant Chaturdashi (15 September 2027). Especially celebrated in Maharashtra (since Bal Gangadhar Tilak 1893 revival). Primary observance: Ganesha Sthapana (idol installation), 21 Modaka naivedyam, Ganesha Atharvashirsha, Sankashtanashana Stotra, Ganesha Ashtottara, daily aarti, Visarjan on Anant Chaturdashi. Recommended muhurat: Madhyahna Muhurat 11:15 – 13:46 IST (Hyderabad) — primary Ganesha Sthapana + puja window.
📕 శ్రీ వినాయక చవితి వ్రత విధానం — PDF
The complete Telugu vratha vidhanam as a printable ebook — ఆచమనం, సంకల్పం, కలశ పూజ, ఏకవింశతి పత్ర పూజ (21 leaves), the full అష్టోత్తర శతనామావళి (108 names), వ్రత కథ, మంగళ హారతి and ఉద్వాసన. No date or muhurat is printed inside, so the same book serves every year.
Vinayaka Chaturthi 2027 — Date & Muhurat
| Festival Date | Saturday, 4 September 2027 |
| Telugu Masa & Tithi | Bhadrapada Shudda Chaturthi |
| Primary Muhurat | Madhyahna Muhurat 11:15 – 13:46 IST (Hyderabad) — primary Ganesha Sthapana + puja window |
| Alternative Names | Ganesh Chaturthi / Ganesha Festival |
All timings computed using Lahiri Ayanamsa Swiss Ephemeris for Hyderabad (17.385°N, 78.486°E). For exact local timings in other cities use our Today's Panchangam tool.
Significance of Vinayaka Chaturthi 2027
Birth day of Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. 11-day festival ends with Ganesh Visarjan on Anant Chaturdashi (15 September 2027). Especially celebrated in Maharashtra (since Bal Gangadhar Tilak 1893 revival).
Key Rituals on Vinayaka Chaturthi 2027
Ganesha Sthapana (idol installation), 21 Modaka naivedyam, Ganesha Atharvashirsha, Sankashtanashana Stotra, Ganesha Ashtottara, daily aarti, Visarjan on Anant Chaturdashi.
Vinayaka Chaturthi 2027 Puja Samagri Checklist (Shopping List)
Items to procure 1-2 days before Vinayaka Chaturthi 2027:
| # | Item |
|---|---|
| 1 | Ganesha idol (clay preferred) |
| 2 | Modaka (21 or 11) — steamed/fried |
| 3 | Banana leaf |
| 4 | 21 durva grass blades |
| 5 | Red hibiscus (japa) flowers |
| 6 | Akshat + kumkum + turmeric |
| 7 | Coconut + bananas |
| 8 | Naivedyam: laddu, kheer, modaka |
| 9 | Bilva leaves |
| 10 | Camphor + ghee lamp |
| 11 | Garland of marigold |
Regional Variations of Vinayaka Chaturthi 2027
Maharashtra: HUGE festival — public pandals, 10-day celebrations, Lalbaugcha Raja Mumbai. AP/Telangana: Khairatabad biggest Ganesh in India. Karnataka: Gowri Ganesha — combined with Gowri puja day prior. Tamil Nadu: Vinayaka Chaturthi (one-day puja). North India: Ganesh Chaturthi devotion.
How Ganesha Came to Have an Elephant's Head
Parvati, alone in Kailasa, formed a boy out of the turmeric paste of her bath and gave him life. She set him at the door and told him to let no one in while she bathed. Shiva returned, the boy refused him, and in the quarrel that followed the boy's head was struck off. Parvati's grief emptied the mountain, and Shiva sent the devas out with one instruction: bring the head of the first creature found lying with its head to the north. They returned with an elephant's. It was fitted, the boy stood up again, and Shiva gave him the name Ganesha and the first place in every worship that would ever be offered — which is why no rite anywhere begins without him.
The second story settles the same point by a different route. A fruit was to go to whichever of the two brothers circled the world first. Kartikeya left at once on his peacock. Ganesha walked once around his parents and sat down, saying that they were his world and he had already been round it. He was given the fruit, and the precedence that came with it.
The fourth day of the bright fortnight of Bhadrapada is kept as his day of appearance, and almost everything about the observance is contained in one object: an image made of clay, given breath, worshipped as the deity himself for as long as the household keeps him, and then returned to water. The festival is the whole arc of that image, not the puja alone.
The night of this chaturthi carries the one prohibition attached to the day — the moon is not looked at. Tradition holds that the moon mocked Ganesha and was cursed, and that whoever sees it on this night is blamed for something they did not do. The best-known consequence is Krishna's: having seen the moon on this chaturthi, he was accused of stealing the Syamantaka gem and had to recover it to clear his name. Hearing or reading that story is the remedy the tradition gives, which is why it is read aloud as part of the vratam in Telugu households.
Vinayaka Chaturthi Puja Vidhi — Step by Step
The observance is a household puja rather than a fast, and it runs from the making of the image to its immersion. The puja window for the day is in the panel above, computed for the city.
| Step | What is done |
|---|---|
| 1 | The clay image — Make or buy an image of unfired clay, undyed or coloured with natural pigment. The image is meant to dissolve, so plaster, resin and chemical paint defeat the point of it. Set it on a wooden plank on a bed of rice, under a canopy of mango or banana leaves. |
| 2 | Mandapa and kalasha — Decorate the mandapa with plantain stems, mango leaves and flowers, and set a kalasha of water with mango leaves and a coconut beside the image. |
| 3 | Pranapratishtha — Invoke the deity into the clay image with the prescribed invocation and a lamp lit beside it. From this point the image is treated as the deity himself, not as a representation. |
| 4 | Shodashopachara puja — Offer the sixteen services in order — seat, water for the feet, water for the hands, bath, cloth, sacred thread, sandal, akshat, flowers, incense, lamp, food, betel, camphor, circumambulation and salutation. |
| 5 | Ekavimshati patra puja — Offer twenty-one kinds of leaf, one at a time with the name that belongs to it — among them garika, bilva, mango, badari, apamarga, datura, shami, arka and jaji. The household's own patri list is the one followed; the lists differ a little from family to family and all of them are traditional. |
| 6 | Garika in threes — Offer durva grass — garika — in blades of three, twenty-one blades in all. It is the one offering the tradition treats as indispensable to Ganesha, above any flower. |
| 7 | Naivedyam — Offer undrallu, kudumulu or modak — steamed rice-and-jaggery dumplings — customarily twenty-one, with fruit, coconut, jaggery and a little sugarcane. |
| 8 | The vratam katha — Read the vratam story aloud with the household present, holding akshat in the hand, and place the akshat on the head at the end. The Syamantaka episode is read as part of it, and it is the remedy for having seen the moon. |
| 9 | Aarti and pradakshina — Light the camphor, sing the aarti, and circumambulate — an odd count, usually three or five. |
| 10 | Visarjan — After the period the family keeps — a day and a half, three, five, seven, nine, ten or eleven days — take the image in procession and immerse it in water, with a last aarti and a handful of the rice it stood on kept back for the house. |
| 11 | Daana — Give food, cloth and the naivedyam to others. Feeding is the giving customarily kept on the day of the immersion. |
Nothing in the sequence requires a priest. It is a household vratam and the tradition presents it that way — the head of the household performs it, and the katha is read by whoever in the family reads it best.
Is Vinayaka Chaturthi a fasting day?
It is a puja day rather than a fasting day, and that distinction is worth being clear about — many households keep no fast at all and have kept the vratam fully. Where a fast is kept, these are the usual forms.
| Form | What it involves |
|---|---|
| No fast | The puja is performed and the household eats the naivedyam as prasada. This is the common practice and the tradition does not treat it as a lesser observance. |
| Upavasa till the puja | Fruit, milk and water until the puja is complete, then the prasada and the meal. Kept by whoever performs the puja in many families. |
| Ekabhukta | One sattvic meal after the puja and nothing further. Kept where the family's custom prescribes a fast. |
| Sankashti discipline | Households that keep the monthly Sankashti Chaturthi fast — released after moonrise — keep this chaturthi in their own way, and the moonrise release is their long-standing practice rather than a contradiction of the day's prohibition. |
The abstention most households actually keep on this day is not from food. It is from looking at the moon.
Mantras Chanted on Vinayaka Chaturthi
These are the names said at the invocation, with each leaf of the patri puja, and at the aarti. A household that knows only the first has enough.
| Mantra | What it means |
|---|---|
| ఓం శ్రీ గణేశాయ నమః Om Sri Ganeshaya Namah | The simplest form, said at the invocation and with each offering. It is also the name with which any other rite of the year is begun. |
| ఓం గం గణపతయే నమః Om Gam Ganapataye Namah | The seed-syllable form, kept as the japa of the day and said while the garika is offered. |
| వక్రతుండ మహాకాయ సూర్యకోటి సమప్రభ | నిర్విఘ్నం కురు మే దేవ సర్వకార్యేషు సర్వదా || Vakratunda mahakaya, suryakoti samaprabha, nirvighnam kuru me deva, sarva-karyeshu sarvada | Curved trunk, great of body, bright as a crore of suns — make my undertakings free of obstacles, always and in all of them. The verse said before beginning anything, and at the start of the puja. |
| గజాననం భూతగణాది సేవితం కపిత్థ జంబూఫల సార భక్షితమ్ | ఉమాసుతం శోక వినాశకారణం నమామి విఘ్నేశ్వర పాదపంకజమ్ || Gajananam bhuta-ganadi sevitam, kapittha jambu-phala sara bhakshitam, Umasutam shoka vinasha karanam, namami vighneshvara pada-pankajam | The elephant-faced one, served by the hosts, who takes the essence of the wood-apple and the rose-apple — Uma's son, the undoing of grief; I bow to the lotus feet of the lord of obstacles. Sung at the aarti. |
Chant at whatever pace lets the words stay clear. Tradition counts attention, not speed, and a short count said with care is held better than a long one rushed. If a syllable is uncertain, follow your family priest or your temple's recitation rather than a transliteration.
How Vinayaka Chaturthi Is Kept Region by Region
This is the most public of the year's household festivals, and how public it is differs completely from one state to the next.
| Region | How the day is kept |
|---|---|
| Maharashtra | The largest observance anywhere. Households keep the image for a day and a half to eleven days, and the sarvajanik mandals — the public pandals that turned a household rite into a street festival under Lokmanya Tilak's encouragement in Pune — keep theirs to Anant Chaturdashi, when the immersion processions take whole days to reach the water. Lalbaugcha Raja in Mumbai and Dagdusheth Halwai in Pune draw the longest queues. |
| Andhra Pradesh and Telangana | Kept as Vinayaka Chavithi, with the clay Vinayakudu, the twenty-one patri, undrallu and kudumulu, and the vratam katha read aloud at home. The Khairatabad Ganesh in Hyderabad, raised taller each year, is the best-known public idol, and the Hussain Sagar immersion closes the festival. |
| Karnataka | Swarna Gauri Vrata is kept the day before — Gauri comes to her parents' house — and Ganesha arrives the next day to take her back, which is how the two days are understood together. Chakli, modaka and payasa are offered, and the public idols of Bengaluru and the coastal towns keep their own immersion days. |
| Goa and the Konkan | Kept as Chovoth, with the matoli — a canopy hung above the idol from a wooden frame, loaded with the season's fruit, vegetables, seeds and wild produce, assembled fresh each year. It is the most distinctive form the festival takes anywhere and the matoli is judged as carefully as the idol. |
| Tamil Nadu | Vinayaka Chaturthi is kept as a temple and household puja rather than a street festival, with the abhishekam at the Pillaiyar shrines, kozhukattai offered, and the clay image immersed after a short keeping. |
| Kerala | The Vinayaka Chaturthi puja is kept at the Ganapathy shrines, with unniyappam and modakam offered. The Pazhavangadi Ganapathy temple in Thiruvananthapuram holds the state's principal observance. |
| Gujarat, Rajasthan and the north | Kept as Ganesh Chaturthi with the modak, the household puja and, in the cities, public pandals on the Maharashtra model. The festival has spread north largely through that public form rather than through the older household vratam. |
Why the image is clay, and why it goes back to water
The image is made to be given up. It is formed of unfired clay, invoked, treated as the deity for as long as the household keeps him, and then carried to water and let go — and the letting go is as much the festival as the arrival. Nothing is stored for next year, because the point of the rite is that the divine is invited, hosted and released rather than owned.
That is also why the material matters in practice. Plaster of Paris does not dissolve, and the lead- and chromium-based paints that make an idol bright do not leave the water. Both defeat the immersion rather than complete it. Unfired clay with natural colour is the older material, it is what the tradition actually prescribes, and it is now the form most states encourage — so here the environmental case and the ritual case point the same way, which is unusual and worth saying.
Where a tank or river cannot take the immersion, the accepted practice is to immerse at home in a drum or wide vessel of water, let the clay dissolve, and pour the water at the base of a tree or into the garden. The tradition is satisfied by the dissolution, not by the location.
The moon on chaturthi night, and what to do if it is seen
The one prohibition the day carries is that the moon is not looked at on this chaturthi. Households take it seriously enough to keep curtains drawn and to walk home looking down, and children are warned about it before anything else about the festival.
The remedy, where the moon has been seen, is to hear or read the Syamantaka story — Krishna, having seen that moon, was accused of stealing the gem and had to recover it before his name was clear. The story is read as part of the vratam for exactly this reason, so a household that has performed the vratam has already taken the remedy for the whole family.
Some households keep a further custom of throwing a few small stones on a neighbour's roof and accepting the scolding that follows, the blame being taken deliberately and in a small enough form to be harmless. It is a local practice rather than a prescription, and families that do not keep it are not missing anything.
More Questions About Vinayaka Chaturthi
Why does Ganesha have an elephant's head?
Why is Ganesha worshipped before every other deity?
Why should the moon not be seen on this night?
Is tulasi offered to Ganesha?
How many days should the idol be kept?
Can the immersion be done at home?
What is offered as naivedyam?
Do we need twenty-one different leaves?
Points Households Most Often Get Wrong
| # | Point |
|---|---|
| 1 | Buying a plaster or chemically painted idol — The image is made to dissolve. Plaster does not, and the bright paints leave metal in the water. Unfired clay with natural colour is both the older practice and the one the immersion requires. |
| 2 | Offering garika singly — Durva is offered in blades of three, twenty-one blades in all. It is the offering the tradition treats as indispensable to Ganesha and the form of it is part of the offering. |
| 3 | Immersing early because the festival "looks over" — The keeping period is the family's own — a day and a half, three, five, seven, nine, ten or eleven days — and it is kept to the end, with the full aarti on the last day. |
| 4 | Treating the day as a fast day — It is a puja day. Most households keep no fast and have kept the vratam completely. The abstention attached to the day is from the moon, not from food. |
| 5 | Skipping the katha because the puja was done — The reading is part of the vratam, not an addition to it, and it is also the remedy for having seen the moon. A puja without the katha leaves the day's one prohibition unanswered. |
| 6 | Assuming a priest is required — It is a household vratam performed by the family, from the invocation to the immersion. Nothing in the sequence needs an intermediary. |