నాగుల చవితి

Timings — select your city

Muhurta Guidance

The puja should ideally be completed before mid-morning, close to sunrise, when the Chaturthi tithi is at its purest. Check the panchangam below for the exact 2026 tithi window in your city.

Wake before sunrise, bathe, and wear clean (preferably new) clothes

Visit a snake pit (puttа/పుట్ట) or a Naga stone idol at a temple — an anthill is considered a natural dwelling of serpents and is worshipped directly where no temple is accessible

Offer milk, turmeric, vermilion (kumkum), flowers, and boiled eggs or puffed rice at the anthill or idol

Light a ghee or oil lamp and circle it around the anthill/idol

Recite Naga Stotram or chant the names of the twelve principal Nagas

Married women tie a sacred thread (support of protection) after the puja and pray for their family's wellbeing

Observe a fast until the puja is completed, breaking it afterward with a simple satvik meal

Avoid killing or harming snakes on this day and throughout Karthika Masam as a mark of respect

Puttalo పాలు పోయడం (offering milk into the anthill) — the central ritual across Telugu households, performed at a puttа near the home or at a temple with a dedicated Naga shrine

Subrahmanyeswara Swamy temples — temples dedicated to Lord Subrahmanyeswara (Kartikeya, associated with serpents) see the heaviest crowds on this day, notably in coastal Andhra

Nagula Chavithi Katha — an evening tradition of narrating or listening to the story of a woman who protected a snake and was in turn protected by it, read aloud in many households

Rural households specifically avoid disturbing anthills or snake burrows near farmland in the days around Nagula Chavithi

In some Telangana households the day is combined with a small family gathering, with prasadam (milk, boiled eggs for those who consume them, or fruit) distributed after the puja

Boiled eggs

a traditional offering at the anthill in many (though not all) Telugu households, alongside milk

Puffed rice (borugulu) and jaggery

offered as prasadam

Vada Pappu (soaked lentils)

light fasting food eaten after the puja

Milk-based sweets

distributed to family after the ritual concludes