Jyeshtha Gauri Avahana

The arrival of the Gauri sisters in Maharashtrian homes during Ganeshotsav. Two goddesses — Jyeshtha the elder and Kanishtha the younger — are welcomed in, worshipped the next day, and sent off on the third.

Unlike most festivals this one is not fixed to a tithi at all: the three Gauri days are set by nakshatra. Avahana falls on the Anuradha day of Bhadrapada Shukla paksha, Poojan on Jyeshtha and Visarjan on Mula — three consecutive nakshatras, which is why the days are almost always consecutive. Almost: a nakshatra runs a little longer than a day, so now and then one is squeezed out between two sunrises and two of the Gauri days fall together.

• Maharashtrian household practice; the Anuradha–Jyeshtha–Mula sequence is standard across Marathi panchangs.
• The day taken is the one the nakshatra occurs on, not only the one where it is running at sunrise — otherwise a skipped nakshatra would leave the day undated, as Mula was in 2021.