This year, Diwali falls on Sunday, Nov. 8. Three weeks later, on Nov. 29, many churches will light the first candle of Advent. Both seasons set a small flame against the long nights of late autumn, each by its own calendar.
I write from Kathmandu, where the festival is called Tihar. What follows is a plain description of what a Hindu household does on Diwali night and why. I will leave the comparisons to you.
The darkest night of the month
The Hindu calendar follows the moon. Each lunar month has a bright half, when the moon grows toward full, and a dark half, when it shrinks toward the new moon. Diwali is kept on the new moon night in the autumn, when no moon rises at all.
Nirajan Bom Malla
The choice is deliberate. Many Hindu festivals are set on a full moon, when the night already is bright. Diwali falls on the one night of the month with no moonlight, so each household lights its own lamps.
The date moves from year to year because it follows the moon. In 2026, it falls on Nov. 8 in both North America and India. In 2027, the two split by a day: Oct. 28 in New York and Oct. 29 in Pune. Each city’s almanac follows its own local sky.
What the lamp is
The traditional Diwali lamp is a diya, a small clay dish of oil or ghee, with a twisted cotton wick lying in the lip. It burns for a few hours and gives a low, yellow light. Families buy them by the dozen in the days before the festival. Many soak the new clay in water first so the oil does not seep through.
Candles and electric strings are common now, especially abroad, and the clay lamp remains the usual choice at the moment of worship.
Where the lamps go
On Diwali evening, the lamps are spread through the whole house. The first goes near the family shrine. Others go on the front threshold, the window ledges, the gate and the stairs. More go in the kitchen and at the corners of the roof.
In many homes, a lamp is placed in every room, including rooms no one uses. The instruction behind this is simple: No part of the house is left dark that night.
Before the lamps are lit, the house is cleaned, often for days. Floors are washed and old things are thrown out. Then a pattern called rangoli is drawn at the entrance in colored powder or rice flour, and only after that are the lamps lit.
Who the lamps are for
The stories behind Diwali differ by region. In much of North India, it recalls the return of Rama to his city of Ayodhya after 14 years of exile. The people of the city lit the road home for him. In parts of South India, the same season remembers Krishna’s victory over the demon Narakasura. In Bengal, the new moon night is given to the goddess Kali.
In most households, the central act of the evening is the worship of Lakshmi, the goddess associated with prosperity and well-being. The worship is done after sunset, inside a set window of time printed in the family’s almanac. Many families leave the front door open during it, with lamps on the threshold, to show that the house is ready to receive her.
After worship comes sweets, visits to neighbors and, in many places, fireworks. The lamps are left burning into the night.
The same instinct
I promised to leave the conclusions to the reader, and I will. A reader who lights an Advent wreath may have noticed two things. One is a light set in the dark on purpose, and the other is a house made ready for a guest.
Hindus and Christians give their own accounts of what those lights mean, and I have kept to the Hindu side. In homes across North America on Nov. 8, families will walk from room to room with a clay lamp until every corner has one. Three weeks later, many of their Christian neighbors will light the first candle of Advent.
So if you see lamps along the steps of a neighbor’s house on the night of Nov. 8, it is Diwali. The family inside has cleaned the house, drawn a rangoli at the door and lit a lamp in every room for the worship of Lakshmi.
Nirajan Bom Malla is founder of VedicMarga and a spiritual entrepreneur. Since 2016, he has worked in the spiritual space, helping thousands of seekers worldwide through educational content and digital tools.