Dev Deepawali and Kartik Purnima at Home: Where to Light the Lamps

According to most panchangs, Kartik Purnima and Dev Deepawali fall on Tuesday 24 November 2026. The full-moon tithi can begin on the previous day, so lamp-lighting and bathing timings vary between sources; confirm them for your city with a local panchang or your family priest.

The day comes about a fortnight after Diwali and a few days after Tulsi Vivah, so for many homes it is the last lamp-lit evening of the festival season.

देव दीपावली (Dev Deepawali, the Diwali of the gods) is the full-moon festival on which, in tradition, the gods themselves come down to celebrate, and lamps are lit in their honour. It is celebrated most famously on the ghats of Varanasi, where the river steps are lined with diyas, but it is also kept quietly at home across India.

Kartik Purnima is linked in many traditions with Shiva's victory over the demon Tripurasura, which is why it is also called Tripuri Purnima, and the whole month of Kartik is associated with दीपदान (deepdaan, the offering of a lamp). The same full moon is also when many Sikh families celebrate Guru Nanak Jayanti. Households mark the day differently; the common thread is light offered with care.

Light the main door first, then the north-east, then the east, the tulsi and the kitchen. This follows the same logic as Diwali, light at the entrance and the sacred corner before anywhere else, on a smaller and quieter scale; where light belongs in a home explains the reasoning in more depth.

The south-west and the centre of the home need the fewest lamps, and the centre should have no flame on the floor at all. This is about balance, not fear: the south-west is the heavy, settled zone and the centre is meant to stay open and easy to move through.

Float a diya in a wide brass or copper bowl of water placed in the north-east; it is a gentle way to make deepdaan at home. The north-east is the water zone in Vastu, so a bowl of water with a lamp on it suits the zone naturally.

Use a shallow, heavy urli that will not tip, fill it about halfway, and set it on a stable surface rather than the floor. If you go to the sea or a lake instead, leave nothing behind: many places now ask people not to release lamps, flowers or plastic into the water, and the offering lies in the lighting, not in leaving it to drift.

Never leave a lamp burning in a room nobody is in, and keep every flame well away from curtains, blinds and anything a breeze can blow against it. In a flat, fabric and wind are the two hazards to plan around, and a few habits deal with both.

Consult a Vastu expert if lighting lamps at home keeps running into the layout: no suitable spot in the north-east, a mandir that shares a wall with a toilet, or a dark entrance that no lamp seems to lift. These have non-structural answers that are easier to work out with the whole floor plan in view.

Dr. Kimaya Parikh-Ambekar of VastuKimaya advises homes on-site across Mumbai from her Andheri East office and through distant consultations using floor plans and photographs. For lamp direction through the rest of the year, see diya and lamp direction as per Vastu.