Ayudha Puja, Saraswati Puja and Vidyarambham

In much of South India, the last two days of Navratri are about knowledge and work. On Navami, people worship the tools of their trade and the books they learn from: Ayudha Puja and Saraswati Puja. On Vijayadashami, they make a fresh start, and in Kerala and parts of Karnataka, small children write their first letters in the Vidyarambham ceremony.

2026 dates

Ayudha Puja falls on Mahanavami and Vidyarambham on Vijayadashami. Calendars disagree by a day in 2026: Navami falls on 19 or 20 October and Vijayadashami on 20 or 21 October, depending on the panchang. Bengal's calendar has Maha Navami on Tuesday 20 October and Bijoya Dashami on Wednesday 21 October. Follow the calendar of your family or temple.

Saraswati Puja

Saraswati, the goddess of learning, music and the arts, is worshipped in the last three days of Navratri across the south. Books, notebooks, pens and musical instruments are placed before her image, decorated with flowers and sandal paste.

In Kerala this is a ceremony of its own. On the evening of Ashtami, books and instruments are handed over to the Goddess in the Pooja Vaippu (placing for worship). For the next day and a half, students don't study and musicians don't practise; the learning rests with Saraswati. On Vijayadashami morning, the books are taken back in the Pooja Eduppu (taking up), and the first thing done is to read or write a few lines and play a few notes, a fresh beginning to the year's learning.

Also readNavratri and Dussehra across India

Ayudha Puja

Ayudha means implement or weapon. On Navami, people honour whatever they work with:

• At home: knives and kitchen tools, sewing machines, laptops and phones.
• At work: machines in factories, tools in workshops, computers in offices, account books in shops.
• Vehicles: cars, autorickshaws, buses and lorries are washed and decorated with banana stems, mango leaves, flowers and kumkum.
• Instruments and weapons: the veena and the mridangam, and in royal and martial traditions, swords and arms.

Each item is cleaned, marked with turmeric, sandal paste and kumkum, and garlanded, and given the day off. In Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, an ash gourd marked with kumkum is often smashed on the road in front of a vehicle or shop to ward off the evil eye. In Mysuru, the royal weapons and the palace elephants are worshipped as part of Dasara.

Offices and workshops often hold a shared puja with sweets and sundal, and in many places the day is a public holiday.

Vidyarambham: a child's first letters

Vidyarambham ("the beginning of learning"), also called Ezhuthiniruthu in Malayalam, is the initiation of a child, usually aged two to five, into letters on Vijayadashami. A priest, teacher, writer or family elder holds the child on their lap and:

1. Guides the child's finger to write "Hari Sri" (ഹരിശ്രീ), the auspicious opening words, in a plate of rice grains.
2. Writes the same letters on the child's tongue with a gold ring.
3. Says the first letters of the alphabet aloud for the child to repeat.

Thousands of children are initiated each year at temples and cultural centres across Kerala, such as the Thunchan Parambu in Tirur, the Panachikkadu Saraswati temple near Kottayam, and the Mookambika temple at Kollur in Karnataka, as well as at home and in churches and community halls. Many families also start music or dance lessons on this day.

Related traditions

Ayudha Puja and Saraswati Puja sit inside the Golu season in Tamil and Telugu homes, and share their spirit with Bengal's Vishwakarma Puja, when tools are worshipped in September. For how the rest of India spends the same days, see Navratri across India and Bengal's Maha Navami.