Dhanteras carries two faces on the same evening, and neither is a bare shopping date. The first is Dhanvantari — the physician-god who rose from the churning of the ocean holding a kalash of amrit, the nectar of immortality — so his jayanti makes this a day of health and ayurveda as much as of wealth. The second is the kharidari: the buying of gold, silver, a metal utensil or a new broom, drawn from that same image of a vessel brought up brimming. The name says it plainly — dhan, wealth, and teras, the thirteenth tithi, Kartik Krishna Trayodashi.
The puja is not kept at midday but in the pradosh kaal, the roughly two-and-a-half-hour twilight that opens at sunset, when Lakshmi is invited across the threshold. Because sunset differs by city, so does the window: it runs 5:32 to 7:56 PM in New Delhi and 6:02 to 8:26 PM in Mumbai. In 2026 the Trayodashi itself begins only at 10:31 AM on Friday 6 November and lasts to 10:49 AM the next day, so that evening’s pradosh sits squarely inside it — while the earlier morning still belongs to Govatsa Dwadashi, when the cow and her calf are honoured. The Yama Deepam, a lone lamp set at the door for Yama to turn away untimely death, is lit the following evening, 7 November, this year.
Dhanteras 2026 at a glance
Festival day
Fri, 6 November 2026
Tithi
Kartik Krishna Trayodashi
Pradosh puja
Delhi 5:32 – 7:56 PM
Trayodashi
6 Nov 10:31 → 7 Nov 10:49
Kharidari
Gold, silver, utensils, broom
Also observed
Dhanvantari Jayanti (Ayurveda)
Dhanteras puja muhurat, by city
The pradosh-kaal window — computed for where you are
New Delhi
5:32 – 7:56 PM
Pradosh Kaal, from sunset ~5:32 PM
Mumbai
6:02 – 8:26 PM
Pradosh Kaal, ~30 minutes later than Delhi
The pradosh kaal is the stretch just after sunset, and because sunset is a local event, the muhurat above is not one national time — Mumbai’s opens about half an hour after Delhi’s, and it slides with your own longitude. This is the window for the evening Lakshmi–Kubera puja and for lighting the first lamps. The kharidari, though, is not confined to it: buying is auspicious through the whole Trayodashi, from when it begins at 10:31 AM on the 6th until it ends at 10:49 AM on the 7th, so a daytime purchase is as valid as an evening one. Confirm your city’s exact sunset and pradosh window on the live panchang before you sit for the puja.
What to buy, and the puja vidhi
Kharidari, the Dhanvantari–Kubera–Lakshmi puja, the new broom and the Yama Deepam
The customary purchases are metal — gold or silver coins, a new utensil for the kitchen, or brass and steel vessels — and a new broom, the jhadu, which is treated as a form of Lakshmi that sweeps out want. Many also buy coriander seeds, and, being Dhanvantari’s day, some bring home a token of ayurveda or medicine. In the pradosh, clean and light the puja space, and worship Dhanvantari for health, Kubera the treasurer for wealth and Lakshmi for prosperity together; offer a lamp, kumkum, sweets and the newly bought article, and place a few coins before the deities, keeping them rather than spending them. Set a first row of lamps at the door and around the home. The new broom is often worshipped and only then used. The Yama Deepam — a single lamp fed with mustard oil, set facing south at the threshold for Yama, the lord of death, to keep untimely death from the household — is lit after dark; in 2026 that observance falls on the evening of 7 November.
Why metal is bought on Dhanvantari’s day
The kalash of amrit, and wealth as health
When the devas and asuras churned the ocean of milk for amrit, the last and greatest figure to rise was Dhanvantari, physician of the gods, holding a kalash brimming with the nectar of immortality. That pot — metal, and full — is the root image of Dhanteras: to bring a vessel or a coin of metal into the house on his jayanti is to draw in the same overflowing abundance, and, because Dhanvantari is the deva of medicine, to ask for arogya, health, which the tradition counts as the truest wealth. This is why the day is also observed as National Ayurveda Day. Metal is chosen because it endures and does not spoil, so what enters now is believed to stay and grow; gold and silver stand for Lakshmi’s settled presence, and the coin placed before the deities in the puja is kept, not spent. Wealth here is never money alone — it is health, the home, and the year’s steady increase.
See today’s panchang and pradosh muhurat for your city
The pradosh windows above are for Delhi and Mumbai. For your own city’s sunset, tithi and muhurat on 6 November — or any day — open the live panchang.
Dhanteras 2026 — your questions
The date, the pradosh muhurat, what to buy and the Yama Deepam