Chopda Pujan 2026 is Sunday, 8 November

For many Gujarati and Marwari families, Diwali night is also the night the new account books are worshipped. The rite is called Chopda Pujan: chopda is the Gujarati word for the ledger, the bound book in which a trader keeps the year’s accounts. In Marwari homes the same book is the bahi-khata. The books are set before Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, and Ganesha, who is worshipped first at the start of any undertaking, and they are worshipped with her.

Families choose the hour in different ways. Many worship the books inside the evening Lakshmi Puja. Many others take a daytime muhurat on Diwali from their family priest or from a choghadiya list (a traditional table of good and less good hours of the day and night; more on it below), and some bring the books to a temple’s community Chopda Pujan. All of them keep the Diwali Amavasya. The Amavasya, the new-moon tithi (lunar day) of the month, runs from 11:28 am on Sunday to 12:32 pm on Monday, Indian Standard Time, and the evening on which it holds the Pradosh window, the hours just after sunset, is the Lakshmi Puja evening. This year only Sunday’s evening qualifies.

This is the same date in Ahmedabad and in Edison, New Jersey, in Mumbai and in Leicester. What differs from city to city is the clock time. The next two sections give the evening window and its narrower slice; the one after gives the Amavasya’s start for a daytime muhurat.

The evening window: Pradosh, from your own sunset

For the households that worship the books in the Lakshmi Puja, the time is the Lakshmi Puja’s. Pradosh (प्रदोष) is the window that opens at sunset. Our engine takes it as 2 hours 24 minutes from your local sunset — the measure our Diwali 2026 city tool and our Lakshmi Puja guide use. The Amavasya fills the whole of Sunday’s window in each city below, and none of Saturday’s or Monday’s.

Read your own row. A time forwarded on a family group from another city can be twenty minutes wrong in India and hours wrong abroad. For a city not listed here, the Diwali 2026 page computes the window from your own location.

• Ahmedabad — sunset 5:58 pm — 5:58 pm to 8:22 pm
• Surat — sunset 5:59 pm — 5:59 pm to 8:23 pm
• Rajkot — sunset 6:06 pm — 6:06 pm to 8:30 pm
• Mumbai — sunset 6:02 pm — 6:02 pm to 8:26 pm
• Edison, New Jersey — sunset 4:46 pm — 4:46 pm to 7:10 pm
• Leicester — sunset 4:22 pm — 4:22 pm to 6:46 pm
• Nairobi — sunset 6:21 pm — 6:21 pm to 8:45 pm
• Dubai — sunset 5:34 pm — 5:34 pm to 7:58 pm

The fixed-lagna slice inside the window

Many families, and many printed almanacs, prefer a narrower slice of the evening: the part of Pradosh during which a sthir lagna, a fixed rising sign, is on the eastern horizon. Of the twelve signs, four are counted fixed: Vrishabha (Taurus), Simha (Leo), Vrishchika (Scorpio) and Kumbha (Aquarius). The thought behind the preference is that a fixed lagna lets Lakshmi settle, and for a household opening the year’s books that is the wish.

On this evening the fixed sign that rises inside Pradosh is Vrishabha. Which sign is rising depends on your latitude and longitude far more sharply than sunset does, so the slice is different in every city. The times below come from the same engine as the window above. For your own coordinates, Lakshmi Puja lagna at your city computes it and cuts it at the Pradosh edges.

The full Pradosh window is a valid time on its own. If the shop closes late or the family gathers late, a puja anywhere inside Pradosh keeps the rule.

• Ahmedabad — Vrishabha 6:22 pm to 8:21 pm
• Surat — 6:24 pm to 8:23 pm
• Rajkot — 6:31 pm to 8:29 pm
• Mumbai — 6:27 pm to 8:26 pm
• Edison, New Jersey — 5:04 pm to 6:53 pm
• Leicester — 4:34 pm to 6:10 pm
• Nairobi — 6:50 pm to 8:45 pm
• Dubai — 5:58 pm to 7:55 pm

A daytime muhurat: when the Amavasya begins where you live

Many families and many temples keep Chopda Pujan in the day: in the morning, at midday or in the afternoon, at a time the priest chooses or a choghadiya list gives. A mandir that announces a community Chopda Pujan on Diwali morning is keeping that custom, and it does not contradict the evening window above. Families who attend the temple rite often keep the evening Lakshmi Puja at home too.

One computed fact matters for a daytime time. The Amavasya begins at 11:28 am IST on Sunday. In India, a Sunday time before 11:28 am still falls in the Chaturdashi, the tithi before it. Abroad it begins earlier on the local clock: before Sunday’s sunrise in Leicester and Edison, and in the middle of Sunday morning in Dubai and Nairobi. If your family’s custom wants the Amavasya running at the moment of the puja, check the start below against the time you are given, and ask your priest if they differ.

• Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot, Mumbai — the Amavasya begins Sunday 11:28 am
• Dubai — Sunday 9:58 am
• Nairobi — Sunday 8:58 am
• Leicester — Sunday 5:58 am
• Edison, New Jersey — Sunday 12:58 am

Choghadiya: why we print no times for it

Many Gujarati families choose the moment for Chopda Pujan by choghadiya, a division of the day and night into eight parts each, named labh, amrit, shubh, chal and so on. Printed calendars and shop-front lists give choghadiya times for Diwali, and a family that has always used them can keep doing so.

We do not print choghadiya times on this page because our engine does not compute them. Every time on this page is a number we computed and can check. A choghadiya list copied from elsewhere would be the one time on the page we could not stand behind. If your family uses choghadiya, take the list from your own priest or calendar, made for your own city, and check it against the Amavasya’s start in your city, above.

The books, and what goes on the first page

The books are bought new for the year. Traditionally they are bound ledgers covered in red cloth; today many traders worship a printed account book, a diary, or the first page of a new register, and households without a business worship a new notebook. Pens and the inkpot are often set beside them.

In many Gujarati homes the rite is also called Sharda Pujan, because Sharda, a name of Saraswati, the goddess of learning, is worshipped in the books alongside Lakshmi. Families write auspicious marks on the first page before the accounts begin: a swastika, the words shubh (auspicious) and labh (gain), and Shri (an invocation of Lakshmi). The exact marks, how many times each is written and in what order, differ from family to family and from trade to trade. Follow your own family’s page if you have one. If you do not, a swastika and Shri written with kumkum (the red powder used in the puja) are a simple start.

Chopda Pujan in order, inside the Lakshmi Puja

The steps below follow our Lakshmi Puja vidhi, which already sets the new ledger before the deities and worships it near the end. Practice varies by family and trade, so take this as a frame, timed for the evening; a family with a daytime muhurat keeps the same order at its own time. This page does not print mantras; the vidhi page gives the ones it can source, and your family priest gives the full order. For what to set out, see our Lakshmi Puja samagri checklist.

• Before sunset: clean the shop or the puja room, set the chowki (a low wooden platform) facing north or east with a red or yellow cloth, and place Ganesha, Lakshmi and the kalash (a water pot) as the vidhi describes. Put the new books, a silver coin and the pen in front of the deities.
• Before the puja: write the marks on the first page of each new book, in kumkum or ink.
• In the Pradosh window, or in its Vrishabha slice: light the diya, take the sankalpa (the spoken intention that names who is doing the puja, where, and why), worship Ganesha first and then Lakshmi with the offerings of the vidhi.
• Then the books: apply tilak and akshat (unbroken rice) to the books and the pen, offer flowers, and fold your hands before them. Some traders write a first entry tonight; many wait for the first sale of the new year, which for many shops is Labh Pancham (below).
• Close with the aarti and the prasad, and keep the diya burning into the night.

After Diwali: the new year, then Labh Pancham

For Gujarati families the new year begins on Kartik Shukla Pratipada, the first lunar day after the Amavasya, as Bestu Varas, the first day of the new year. It is the morning of Govardhan Puja and Annakut (the mountain of food offered to Krishna), described in our Govardhan Puja and Bhai Dooj guide. The Pratipada runs from 12:32 pm on Monday, 9 November to 2:00 pm on Tuesday, 10 November IST, so in India the new-year morning is Tuesday, 10 November. In Edison it is Monday, 9 November. In Leicester the Pratipada holds the sunrise of both Monday and Tuesday, and our calendar dates Govardhan Puja on Monday; ask your mandir which morning it keeps.

Many shops stay closed for the first days of the year and reopen on Labh Pancham, the fifth lunar day, with the first entry in the new books. In 2026 the Panchami holds sunrise on Saturday, 14 November in all eight cities on this page. The daily panchang shows the tithi at your own sunrise.

Honest questions, honest answers

Can we do Chopda Pujan on Dhanteras instead? Dhanteras, Friday 6 November this year, is the day many families buy the new books, gold or utensils. The books are worshipped on the Amavasya, in the evening Lakshmi Puja or at the family’s daytime muhurat. Our Dhanteras guide covers that day.

We are in the United States. Is our Chopda Pujan on Saturday because of the time difference? No. In Edison, and in every US city we checked for the Lakshmi Puja guide, Sunday’s Pradosh window is inside the Amavasya and Saturday’s is not. Kali Puja, which is kept at midnight, does move to Saturday night on the US West Coast; the evening rite does not.

The shop is open until 9 pm. Is it too late? Read your own row first: in Ahmedabad the Pradosh window closes at 8:22 pm, in Edison at 7:10 pm. Many traders close early on Diwali for the puja. If that is not possible, ask your priest; we do not set a rule for after the window.

Do we need a priest? Many families do it themselves, with the eldest leading. Others call the family priest to the shop. Both are common.

Going deeper

For the whole corridor — the five days and each day’s rite at your city — open the Diwali 2026 city tool or the Diwali 2026 festival guide. For the evening window in more cities and why the diaspora keeps the same evening, read the Lakshmi Puja muhurat guide. For the midnight rite on the same Amavasya, read our Kali Puja 2026 guide.