Lamps lit in a row at dusk.

Festival · 2095

Rath Yatra 2095

Falls on 3 July 2095 in Haridwar, as computed from the real sky for that city.

The portal of Festivals

Today's three riddles

Turn a card. Answer all three rightly and this portal is sealed in your sky. New riddles every morning.

Wishing you a blessed Rath Yatra

May you hold the reins of your own chariot well, and may the Lord ride with you through every street of this year.

A verse for the day

आत्मानं रथिनं विद्धि शरीरं रथमेव तु । बुद्धिं तु सारथिं विद्धि मनः प्रग्रहमेव च ॥

ātmānaṁ rathinaṁ viddhi śarīraṁ rathameva tu buddhiṁ tu sārathiṁ viddhi manaḥ pragrahameva ca

Its meaning

Know the Self as the lord of the chariot, and the body as the chariot. Know the intellect as the charioteer, and the mind as the reins.

Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.3.3

When, for Haridwar

3 July 2095

Shukla Dwitiya · until 12:51 AM, 4 July 2095

Do

Take one skill you usually keep to yourself and teach it to someone today, freely.

Leave aside

Pushing in the crowd. The chariot is pulled together, never over someone.

The greeting card, as it will arrive
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Send this as your wish

Add your name. The card goes as a picture they can read and keep, and the link with it opens as your wish, with the timing for their own city, the verse, and how to keep the day.

Wishing you a blessed Rath Yatra

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In 25,098 days

The sky that day

The Moon
Shukla Dwitiya
The Sun is in
Mithuna
The Moon is in
Karka, in Punarvasu

A thin crescent returns to the evening sky of Ashadha as the rains reach the east: the god goes out into the street as the season turns.

What the day is

The deity leaves the temple and comes into the street — the one festival built entirely on the idea that the divine does not stay where it is kept.

The story

4 stories the day keeps. Turn each card.

1 / 4The king's vision and the wooden formsTurn ↻

King Indradyumna longed to see Vishnu in the form of Nila Madhava and was led to a great log washed ashore at Puri. An old carpenter offered to carve it if no one opened the doors until he finished. The queen, hearing silence, opened them early; the carpenter was gone and the forms were unfinished. They have been worshipped just as they are ever since.

Skanda Purana, Purushottama Kshetra Mahatmya; the carpenter, as the living tradition tells it.

2 / 4Three chariots to the Gundicha templeTurn ↻

Jagannath, his brother Balabhadra and his sister Subhadra leave the great temple on three chariots, built new each year from wood, and are pulled by thousands of hands to the Gundicha temple. They stay there some days and then make the return journey.

As Puri keeps it.

3 / 4The king sweeps the roadTurn ↻

Before the chariots move, the Gajapati king of Puri sweeps the platform of each chariot with a golden broom and sprinkles sandal water. The highest in the land comes as the lowest servant; before the Lord, rank is set aside.

Chhera Pahanra, as Puri keeps it.

4 / 4Chaitanya dances before the chariotTurn ↻

Sri Chaitanya, who lived his last years in Puri, would sing and dance before Jagannath's chariot with his companions, lost in love. The open street became the temple.

Chaitanya Charitamrita, Madhya Lila.

How to keep Rath Yatra

Free acts, done by you. Kept so far this year: 0 of 3.

Take one skill you usually keep to yourself and teach it to someone today, freely.

Set out water or a little food for people on the street: those who walk, carry or wait in the heat and the rain.

Walk one journey today that you would usually ride, as the god goes on foot among his people.

Each act is free and done by you. Keeping one writes it to your karma ledger with the day's panchang. Nothing here is ever bought, and no act is a remedy.

The family's part

The youngest

Pulls a small chariot with a rope through the house or the lane.

The eldest

Tells the story of the unfinished forms and why they are loved as they are.

Everyone

Share the same food together from one plate or one pot, as everyone shares the Lord's prasad.

How India keeps it

  • Puri

    The great procession: three towering chariots pulled by a sea of people along the Bada Danda, the grand road.

  • Ahmedabad

    A long Rath Yatra leaves the Jagannath temple at Jamalpur and winds through the old city.

  • Bengal

    Children pull small decorated chariots through the lanes, and Mahesh near Serampore keeps one of the oldest Rath Yatras outside Odisha.

  • Cities around the world

    Since the 1960s, devotees of Krishna have pulled Jagannath's chariot through the streets of London, New York and many other cities.

The day, for Haridwar

3 July 2095

Tithi
Shukla Dwitiya · until 12:51 AM, 4 July 2095
Nakshatra
Punarvasu
Sunrise – Sunset
5:21 AM – 7:22 PM
Abhijit Muhurta
11:53 AM – 12:49 PM
The full day →

The day is chosen by the moment the tradition reads its tithi at, and the times are that day's own, computed for this city. A festival-specific puja window is not printed: those rules differ by tradition and await a scholar's review.

For another city

The stories, their sources and the regional customs on this page await a scholar's review. The sky and the dates are computed for your city.

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