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Celebrate India
India's calendar bursts with religious, regional, musical, cultural and culinary celebrations. Filter by month, type or state to plan around the right moment.
Happening soon
Indian festivals mostly follow lunar calendars, so the exact days shift each year. We name the month they fall in and leave the day to the panchang closer to the time.
Festival calendarFestival directory
Use the calendar when timing is the main decision, or browse the directory for context, location and meaning.
Kirat Khambu Rai communities across Sikkim, with observances recorded at Namchi, Gangtok and Ranka.
The defining festival of the Kirat Khambu Rai, one of Sikkim's major communities, and one of the state's recognised festivals.
The open-air festival grounds at Weiking Field, Jaiaw, Shillong, East Khasi Hills district, Meghalaya.
The Thanksgiving Dance of the Peaceful Hearts, marking the spring sowing with traditional courtly dances.
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Centered entirely at the Vadakkunnathan Temple grounds in Thrissur, Kerala.
Kerala's most spectacular temple festival, famous for caparisoned elephants, parasol exchanges (Kudamattam), and grand percussion ensembles and fireworks.
Celebrated across the state of Kerala, as well as by Malayali communities in neighboring regions and worldwide.
Kerala's New Year festival, centred on the Vishukkani — an arrangement of auspicious items viewed first thing in the morning to ensure a prosperous year.
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Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, Kushinagar, Sikkim, Ladakh, and globally across Buddhist nations.
Commemorates the birth, enlightenment and death of Gautama Buddha. Observed with prayers, meditation and processions, especially at Bodh Gaya and Sarnath.
The ancient Hadimba Devi Temple compound, situated inside the dense Doongri pine forest, Manali, Himachal Pradesh.
Celebrates the birth anniversary of Goddess Hadimba Devi, when troupes gather to perform the traditional Kullu Nati folk dance.
Observed by Muslim communities nationwide, with particularly historic and grand gatherings in Jammu & Kashmir, Old Delhi, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Kerala, and West Bengal.
Commemorates Prophet Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice in obedience to God. Marked by prayers, the qurbani sacrifice, and sharing meat with the needy.
The Ragnya Devi temple at Tulmulla, Ganderbal district, Jammu & Kashmir, about 25 km from Srinagar.
The most significant date in the Kashmiri Pandit calendar, and a rare annual instance of a displaced community returning in numbers to its own shrine.
Villages of Mokokchung district, Nagaland - the heartland of the Ao Naga tribe.
A post-sowing festival of the Ao Naga tribe, celebrating friendship with warrior chants, indigenous wine, and dances of their own.
Throughout the state of Sikkim, heavily centered at the Tsuklakhang Palace Monastery and Rumtek Monastery in Gangtok, as well as Buddhist pockets in Ladakh and West Bengal.
The most sacred Buddhist day in Sikkim, honouring the birth, enlightenment, and passing of Buddha with monastic processions.
Kamakhya Temple, Nilachal Hills, Guwahati, Assam
Commemorates the annual menstruation cycle of Goddess Kamakhya. Gates close for three days, attracting thousands of Tantric ascetics.
Pampa River at Champakulam, Kuttanad region, Alappuzha district, Kerala.
The race that opens Kerala's snake boat season, recalling the ancient journey that carried a royal idol to its installation.
Observed along the sacred banks of the Ganges, primarily in Haridwar, Rishikesh, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Garhmukteshwar, and Patna.
Celebrates the descent of the holy river Ganga to earth. Marked by riverside aartis and holy dips, especially at Haridwar, Rishikesh and Varanasi.
Jagdalpur, Bastar district — the Jagannath temple and the ground beside the Jagdalpur Palace.
A genuinely old Bastar tradition, running roughly six centuries, and one of very few Rath Yatras outside Odisha with an independent history.
Celebrated at the Hemis Monastery, located 45 km southeast of Leh, Ladakh (high-altitude region in Northern India).
Ladakh's largest monastic festival celebrating Guru Padmasambhava's birth, famous for colourful masked Cham dances performed by lamas.
Karaikal town — the Karaikal Ammaiyar temple and the streets immediately around it. Karaikal is the Puducherry enclave on the Tamil Nadu coast.
Karaikal's own festival, with no equivalent in Puducherry town. It belongs to the Shaivite saint tradition of the Kaveri delta rather than to Puducherry's French coast.
Throughout the state of Odisha, with high cultural fervor in coastal districts like Cuttack, Puri, and Khordha.
A festival of womanhood and fertility, marking the rest Mother Earth takes before the sowing begins.
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Across the state of Goa, with intense, highly colorful celebrations in villages like Siolim, Anjuna, and Candolim.
A cheerful Goan Christian festival dedicated to St. John the Baptist, where locals wear floral crowns and jump into water wells.
Shey Manla, situated beautifully on the rocky banks of the Indus River, approximately 8 km from Leh, Ladakh.
Honours the sacred Indus as a river that has long stood for national integration and peaceful coexistence between cultures.
White Town, Puducherry — the French War Memorial on Goubert Avenue, the seafront promenade, and the streets of the French quarter.
The only place in India where a French national day is observed as a civic event, with an accredited consulate, a war memorial and a veterans' parade — a direct survival of French India rather than a themed evening.
Jowai town, West Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya.
A Pnar festival to drive disease away, with mud fights on waterlogged ground and tall towers floated through the water.
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Hyderabad, Secunderabad, and surrounding districts of Telangana
A thanksgiving festival dedicated to Goddess Mahakali. Women carry decorated earthen pots with rice and jaggery to shrines.
Devaki Krishna Temple yard, Marcel (Mashel) village, Ponda, Goa.
A joyful mud festival celebrating the infant playfulness of Lord Krishna through traditional village mud games.
The Ziro Valley, Lower Subansiri district, Arunachal Pradesh, with the largest public festival ground hosted in open-air fields near Hapoli town.
The Apatani tribe's chief farming festival, when sacrifices are offered to keep insect pests off the crop.
Across Kumaon — Almora, Nainital, Bageshwar, Pithoragarh, Champawat — and parts of Garhwal.
The most genuinely Uttarakhandi festival in the calendar, and the one the state has taken up as its own environmental day.
Farming villages across all of Chhattisgarh; it is a state-wide festival rather than a regional one.
Chhattisgarh's own new year in practical terms, and a state holiday — one of the few Indian festivals whose entire subject is farm implements.
Puri, Odisha is the grand epicenter, though celebrated on smaller scales across India.
The grand chariot festival of Puri where the deities Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra are pulled on massive wooden chariots by millions of devotees — a symbol of radical equality.
Heavily centered at the Shree Shree Govindajee Temple complex in Imphal, Manipur, as well as major local community temples across the valley.
The grand Meitei wooden chariot festival mirroring Puri's Rath Yatra, moving deities across city lanes.
The historic Chaturdasha Devata Temple at Old Agartala (Puran Agartala), Tripura.
An ancient royal and tribal ritual in which fourteen tribal patron deities are cleansed in the river to purify mother earth.
Mithila region, Bihar state (Darbhanga, Madhubani districts).
A local monsoon festival for newly married women, who listen to serpent legends and make offerings of patterned leaves.
The historic, expansive Chaugan (town meadow) of Chamba town, Himachal Pradesh.
An ancient monsoon harvest fair where citizens float silk tassels into the Ravi River to pray for a prosperous crop.
Tuensang district, the Chang Naga homeland in eastern Nagaland. Changsang is held to be the oldest Chang village.
A genuine pre-Christian tradition of one of the eastern Naga tribes, still observed in Tuensang. The fixed July window is a modern standardisation.
Daman only, not Diu — the fishing settlements of Nani Daman, on and around the tidal creek between Moti Daman and Nani Daman.
The working calendar of a fishing community turned into a festival, and the most important date of the year for Daman's koli households.
Zunheboto district, the Sumi Naga heartland, plus Sumi communities in Dimapur and elsewhere.
A genuine pre-Christian agrarian tradition, still living among a now largely Christian community. The 8 July date is a twentieth-century standardisation rather than an ancient rule.
Sri Sengazhuneer Amman Temple, Veerampattinam — a fishing village on the coast about 8 km south of Puducherry town.
The largest single religious gathering in the Puducherry region, and one of very few temple festivals anywhere in India important enough that the government declares a public holiday for it.
Pampa River, near the Sree Parthasarathy Temple, Aranmula, Pathanamthitta district, Kerala.
The oldest ritual snake boat race in Kerala, where traditional temple grace counts for more than raw speed.
