Kojagari Lakshmi Puja 2027 Falls on 14 October, Not 15

Kojagari Lakshmi Puja 2027 Falls on 14 October, Not 15

Kojagari Lakshmi Puja 2027 is on Thursday 14 October 2027, and the puja belongs to that night's midnight window: 10:58 PM to 11:47 PM in Kolkata and 11:08 PM to 11:57 PM in Bhubaneswar. Purnima tithi runs from 6:49 PM on 14 October to about 7:16 PM on 15 October IST, so by the night of the 15th the full moon has gone. If you are wishing someone away from home, plan for the night itself: in SubhSandesh's Raksha Bandhan 2026 data, our nearest festival analogue (n = 89 pages), 49.4% of greeting pages were built on the festival day, and 48.3% of all views of shared SubhSandesh pages happen on a phone.

Below: why calendars split between the 14th and 15th, city timings, why Bengal and Odisha keep Lakshmi for this full moon, and the rituals by name.

What Kojagari Lakshmi Puja is, and what "who is awake?" means

Kojagari Lakshmi Puja is the night worship of Lakshmi on the full moon of Ashwin, kept as the main Lakshmi Puja of the year in West Bengal, Odisha and Assam. The name comes from the Sanskrit ko jāgarti, "who is awake?", and the Monier-Williams Sanskrit dictionary entry for kojāgara explains it as Lakshmi's call as she descends that night, promising wealth to all who are awake. It cites the Linga Purana.

In Bengali the festival is কোজাগরী লক্ষ্মীপূজা (kojāgarī lakṣmīpūjā, spoken "Kojagori Lokkhi Pujo"). The Samsad Bengali-English Dictionary defines কোজাগর (kojāgara) as the full-moon day "in the month of Ashwin-Kartik" when Lakshmi is worshipped. The Purnnachandra Odia Bhashakosha lists କୋଜାଗର ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣିମା (kojāgara pūrṇṇimā) as the Ashwin full moon, with its everyday Odia name କୁଆଁରପୁନିଆଁ (kuāṁra puniāṁ, the young people's full moon, or Kumar Purnima).

Why 2027's date is 14 October, not 15 October

Panchangs give Kojagari to the day whose nishita, the roughly 49-minute window around local midnight, falls inside Purnima tithi. In 2027 Purnima begins at 6:49 PM IST on Thursday 14 October and ends at about 7:16 PM IST on Friday 15 October. The midnight of the 14th sits inside it and the midnight of the 15th does not, so Kojagari is the 14th everywhere in India.

We did not copy that from a website. We computed the Sun-Moon angle with Jean Meeus' lunar series (Purnima is the stretch from 168° to 180°) and each city's night with the NOAA sunrise equation. Our figures match the published Kolkata panchang to the minute for the 6:49 PM start and the 10:58 to 11:47 PM nishita; our full-moon instant lands at 7:17 PM, one minute after the panchang's 7:16 PM.

Calendars that print 15 October use the sunrise rule, since Purnima is the tithi at sunrise on the 15th; that suits a Purnima fast, not a midnight puja. One holiday-listing site we checked on 22 October 2026 gives West Bengal's "Lakshmi Puja 2027" as 29 October, which is Diwali's Lakshmi Puja, not Kojagari.

Nishita times for Kojagari 2027 in five cities

This table compares five cities for the night of 14 October 2027, in local time, from our own computation.

India, Dubai (11:40 PM to 12:29 AM), Britain and North America all keep Kojagari on the night of the 14th. Sydney is the edge case: Purnima starts there at 12:19 AM on 15 October, a minute after its midnight window opens, so families in Australia should follow their temple's panchang.

Why Bengal and Odisha worship Lakshmi on Sharad Purnima, not on Diwali

Bengal gives Diwali's new-moon night to Kali, so Lakshmi's main worship sits on the first full moon after Durga Puja. B. A. Gupte's 1919 ethnography Hindu Holidays and Ceremonials recorded this a century ago: on Diwali night, he wrote, Bengalis "bring home clay figures of their dreadful Kali and worship them in the place of" Lakshmi, saying Kali is Lakshmi and Saraswati as well.

The state calendar still keeps the two apart. West Bengal's Finance (Audit) Department notification No. 4188-F(P2), dated 27 November 2025, lists Lakshmi Puja on Sunday 25 October 2026, with Monday 26 October as an additional day, and Kali Puja on Sunday 8 November 2026: two festivals, 14 days apart. In 2027 the gap is the same, with Kojagari on 14 October and Kali Puja on the night of 28 October.

Gupte also records Bengal Lakshmi pujas in Chaitra and Paushya; Kojagari is the largest of them. In Bengal's Durga images she stands beside Durga, counted as one of her children, so she is worshipped as her mother's festival ends.

Odisha reads the same night through its young people. The Odia dictionary's note says Lakshmi goes from house to house asking who is awake, favouring the wakeful and leaving the sleeping. In the evening the moon is worshipped with ଚାନ୍ଦଭୋଗ (chānda bhoga, the moon's food offering), and unmarried boys and girls call one another "moon" to seal friendships, which is how one full moon is both Lakshmi's night and Kumar Purnima.

The Kojagari story: the king who bought Alakshmi

Gupte's Bengal story begins with a king who buys every article left unsold at his weekly market, to keep artisans coming. One day the unsold piece is a statuette of Alakshmi, অলক্ষ্মী (alakṣmī, spoken "Olokkhi"), which Samsad glosses as "the goddess of misfortune and misery". That night Lakshmi weeps and leaves, followed by Fortune, Success and the family goddess, and only Dharma stays.

Before she goes, Lakshmi leaves him four rules, the last being "Watchfulness is the essence of night". The king grows poor and abandons his queen after a quarrel. She finds young women in a forest worshipping Lakshmi "on the night of the Kojagari day", joins them, and the iron image of Alakshmi in the palace melts as his fortune returns.

Kojagari rituals at home, in the order of the 2027 evening

Five steps for 14 October 2027 in a Kolkata home, where the sun sets at 5:12 PM, each with its Bengali name and timing.

1. Alpana at the threshold

আলপনা (ālapanā, spoken "alpona") is, in Samsad's definition, floor or wall painting "with liquefied pigment of rice-powder". On Kojagari it runs from the door to the altar, often as small footprints walking in. Draw it before sunset at 5:12 PM so the paste is dry when the first lamp is lit.

2. The jhanpi or the painted plate

ঝাঁপি (jhām̐pi, a lidded wicker basket in Samsad) holds paddy and coins as Lakshmi's seat in many homes; others use a clay image or a painted শরা (śarā, a shallow earthen plate). Set it up after sunset and before Purnima begins at 6:49 PM, with a পেঁচা (pẽcā, owl), her mount, often beside it.

3. Bhog of khichuri, naru and khoi

খিচুড়ি (khicuṛi, rice and lentils), নারকেল নাড়ু (nārkel nāṛu, coconut sweet balls) and খই (khai, parched paddy) are the usual offerings. Cook between 7 and 10 PM so the bhog is ready before nishita opens at 10:58 PM, and keep a share for neighbours the next morning.

4. Reading the Lakshmir panchali

পাঁচালি (pām̐cāli) is, in Samsad's words, "a class of Bengali poems celebrating the glory of a deity", and the লক্ষ্মীর পাঁচালি (lakṣmīr pām̐cāli) is read aloud during the puja. Read it inside the 10:58 to 11:47 PM window if you follow the nishita rule, or at the evening puja if you do not.

5. Jagaran through the night

জাগরণ (jāgaraṇa) is, per Samsad, "act of waking; sleeplessness", the literal answer to Lakshmi's question. Sunrise in Kolkata is 5:33 AM on 15 October 2027, so a full vigil runs about 12 hours from sunset, kept, Monier-Williams notes, "with various games".

Sending a Kojagari wish, and where SubhSandesh fits

SubhSandesh has no Kojagari or Lakshmi Puja page, and nothing on the site replaces a family puja. Our Raksha Bandhan 2026 analogue, only 89 pages, says people make greetings on the day rather than in advance. A shared SubhSandesh page averages 11.1 views, so pages tend to be reopened, not glanced at once.

The page that fits comes two weeks later, when Kali Puja night on 28 October and Diwali on 29 October bring the same families back to lamps. The SubhSandesh Diwali greeting page with a diya at their door holds a tagged diya at their door, a row of wish diyas, a rangoli that glows with your initials and a letter in a red-and-gold shagun liffafa. It takes about 5 minutes, and the private link opens in any browser with no app.

For a partner spending Kojagari night in another city, the SubhSandesh miss-you page for a partner far away is the closer fit. It is a romantic page, not a festival page, so it suits a husband in Pune, not your mother.

When this guide's times are the wrong ones to follow

If your family follows a Bengali panjika for 1434 Bangabda, or an Odia panji, its printed time wins over ours; almanacs differ in method by a few minutes. Our computation is not a priest's ruling, and Sydney is a genuine edge case.

SubhSandesh also loses on this night. A link does nothing for an elder sitting at the altar, and with 48.3% of views on a phone, a page is a message for someone elsewhere, not a substitute for being in the room.

Sources

• Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1899), kojāgara, p. 312, Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon.
• Samsad Bengali-English Dictionary, entries কোজাগর, আলপনা, ঝাঁপি, পাঁচালি, খই, জাগরণ, অলক্ষ্মী, শরা, DSAL, University of Chicago.
• Purnnachandra Odia Bhashakosha, କୋଜାଗର ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣିମା, p. 1782, DSAL.
• B. A. Gupte, Hindu Holidays and Ceremonials, 2nd edition, Calcutta, 1919, pp. 36 and 102-104, Internet Archive.
• Government of West Bengal, Finance (Audit) Department, Notification No. 4188-F(P2), 27 November 2025.
• Purnima and nishita times: our computation (Meeus, NOAA), checked against a published Kolkata panchang on 22 October 2026.