Next: about 17 to 20 Oct 2026
Durga Puja (Saptami to Dashami)
Bengal dresses anew for the four great days of Durga Puja, with tant, Dhakai, garad and Banarasi sarees going from pandal to pandal.
What is worn for Durga Puja (Saptami to Dashami)
Durga Puja is the biggest festival of Bengal, and new clothes, called pujor jama, are part of it. Families buy sarees weeks ahead and wear a fresh one on each of the main days. Cotton tant and Dhakai jamdani are common in the day heat, silk garad and Baluchari for the evening round of pandals, and Banarasi for the grand occasions. Red, white, yellow and orange are favoured. White with a red border, the colours of the goddess and of married women, is worn for the aarti and the dhunuchi dance, when devotees dance with smoking clay incense burners. The dates shown are the four days from Saptami to Dashami and can differ by a day between Bengali almanacs.
The sarees
Also part of it, and being written: Garad (White or cream silk with a red border, used for rites.), Baluchari sari (Silk with mythological scenes woven on the pallu.).
More sarees worn for Durga Puja (Saptami to Dashami)
Written by the EveryPallu desk with AI assistance. Background: "Durga Puja" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Garad sari: Bongan, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Tant sari: Billjones94, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Jamdani: Salim_Khandoker, CC0, source