Prathamastami 2024: Date, shubh muhurat, significance, timings, rituals and all you need to know about the Odia festival

Prathamastami 2024: This festival is dedicated to the eldest child of the family. On this day, families pray for their success and prosperity.

Published on: Nov 23, 2024 9:41 AM IST

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Prathamastami 2024: Prathamastami is a much-anticipated festival in Odisha. It falls on November 23, 2024. It is celebrated on the eighth day of the Krishna Paksha during the Margashira month of the Hindu lunar calendar; Prathamastami is also known locally as ‘Paruha Ashtami’. This celebration is centred around the eldest child in the family.

Prathamastami celebrates and honours the eldest child of the family. (Pexels)

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Prathamastami 2024: Date and Time

Prathamastami Date: November 23, 2024
Ashtami Tithi Start: 6:08 PM on November 22, 2024
Ashtami Tithi End: 7:57 PM on November 23, 2024

Prathamastami 2024: Significance

This Odia festival is centred on the eldest child, praying for their good health and prosperity. It holds deep symbolic meaning, as the firstborn is seen as the custodian of family traditions, responsible for supporting and taking care of their parents and ensuring the continuity of the family legacy.

On this holy day, families come together and pray to Goddess Shashthi Devi, who is also known as Jyestha Devi, the god of children and longevity. The firstborn is given new clothes, and special dishes are prepared for this occasion. Enduri Pitha is a sweet dish which is made on this day and is the main delicacy of the auspicious festival.

Prathamastami 2024: Ritual

On this day, the mother performs an aarti for the eldest child, praying to the gods to protect her child against all the evil and negativity. Other than Goddess Shashti Devi, Lord Ganesh is also worshipped. The eldest child is known as the ‘Jyeshtha Santan.’ They get a lot of love and gifts from their families. ‘Haldi Kathi’, a sacred yellow thread from the blessing of the gods, is tied around the wrist to safeguard them against all evils and have divine protection.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adrija Dey
Adrija Dey’s proclivity for observation fuels her storytelling instinct. As a lifestyle journalist, she crafts compelling, relatable narratives across diverse touchpoints of the human experience, including wellness, mental health, relationships, interior design, home decor, food, travel, and fashion that gently nudge readers toward living a little better. For her, stories exist in flesh and bones, carried by human vessels and shaped through everyday endeavours. It is the small stories we live and share that make us human. After all, humans and their lores are the most natural and raw repositories of stories, and uncovering them, for her, is akin to peeling an orange under a winter afternoon sun. Always up for a chat, she believes the best stories come from unfiltered yapping, where "too much information" is kind of the point. A graduate of Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, and an alumna of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, Adrija spends her idle hours cocooned with herbal tea and a gripping thriller, scribbling inner monologues she loosely calls poetic pieces, often with her succulents in attendance. On lazier days, she can be found binge-watching, for the nth time, one from her comfort-show holy trinity: The Office (US), Brooklyn Nine-Nine, or Modern Family. Dancing by herself to her peppy playlists, however, is an everyday ritual she swears by religiously.Read More

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