Maha Shivaratri 2027
6 March 2027

Maha Shivaratri is Phalgun Krishna Chaturdashi, kept at nishita, the depth of night, the one night of the year tradition holds most sacred to Shiva. Devotees keep a nirjala or phalahar vrat through the day and a night-long jagran, worshipping Shiva through all four prahars of the night with abhishek of his linga, rather than sleeping through the hours tradition asks be spent awake.

The Shiva Purana tells that on this night, during the samudra manthan, the churning of the ocean, a deadly poison, halahala, rose before the nectar did, threatening to destroy the three worlds, and Shiva drank it to save creation, holding it in his throat rather than swallowing it, which turned his throat blue and gave him the name Neelkanth. Many also keep this night as the one of Shiva and Parvati’s wedding, and a hunter’s katha, commonly read on this night, tells how an act done without any intention of worship was still enough to win Shiva’s grace.

• Shiva linga or picture
• Milk, curd, honey, ghee and sugar for panchamrit
• Bael (bilva) leaves
• Dhatura flower
• White flowers and akshat
• Water for abhishek
• Diya and incense

Source: Neelkanth: Shiva Purana, the samudra manthan. The hunter: Vrat katha as commonly read on this night

When the devas and asuras churned the ocean for amrit, the poison halahala rose first, spreading fear through the three worlds, as the Shiva Purana tells. The other gods turned to Shiva, and he drank the poison to save creation, but held it in his throat instead of swallowing it, so it neither entered his body nor was spat back into the world; this is why he is called Neelkanth, the blue-throated one, and this night is kept awake in memory of that night’s churning.

A widely read vrat katha tells of a hunter who, caught out in the forest after dark on this night and chased up a tree by a tiger, spent the night plucking leaves and dropping them to keep himself awake and alert. Beneath him, without his knowing, stood a Shiva linga, and each leaf he dropped happened to be a bael leaf falling on it, along with drops of water from his water-skin.

At each of the four parts of that long night, his unknowing offering of bael leaves and water was complete, and by dawn Shiva, pleased with devotion given even without intention, spared the hunter and his family hardship from then on. The story is told to show that Shiva’s grace reaches whoever keeps this night’s vigil, however it is kept.

What to do

• Keep the night’s four-prahar puja even if you cannot manage all of them; many people choose the prahar nearest midnight if a full night’s jagran is hard to keep.
• Use bael leaves with the smooth side facing the linga, three leaves to a stem if you can find them, since tradition holds this the form dearest to Shiva.
• If you are elderly, unwell, pregnant or nursing, it is common to keep the vrat on fruit and milk rather than going without food or water, and to follow a doctor’s advice on a night-long fast.

What to avoid

• Avoid breaking the vrat before the final prahar’s puja is done, if you are keeping the fast through the night.
• Many devotees avoid tulsi in Shiva’s offerings, since tradition keeps tulsi for Vishnu’s worship and bael for Shiva’s.

Maha Shivaratri is kept at Shiva temples across the country with particular grandeur at Kashi, Ujjain’s Mahakaleshwar and the other jyotirlingas, where the night draws some of the year’s largest crowds; some communities also mark it with folk fairs and all-night bhajans beyond the temple puja itself.

The day is read by the Chaturdashi running at nishita, midnight, so its date can differ by a day between cities and countries when the tithi changes close to that hour, the same rule that moves any midnight-based festival.