How to do Ghatasthapana at home
About 30 minutes
Ghatasthapana is the installation of the ghat on the first morning of Navratri, and it is the act that begins the nine days at home. You need an earthen pot, clean soil, barley seed, a kalash of water, a coconut, and a lamp. The steps below are the common Maharashtrian order. The auspicious time differs every year and by place, so check a panchang or ask your family priest for this year’s muhurat before you begin.
Steps
- 1
Choose and clean the spot
A north-east corner of the house is usual. Clean the floor, and lay a low wooden chaurang or a clean cloth. Nothing else sits on it for the nine days.
- 2
Spread the soil and sow the barley
Put clean soil in a wide earthen dish and scatter barley seed evenly through it, then sprinkle a little water. This is the one that needs care afterwards — it must be watered lightly each day, and by the ninth it has grown into the green shoots that are the point of it.
- 3
Fill and place the kalash
Fill a copper or brass kalash with clean water. Many families add a coin, a supari and a few grains of rice. Tie a red or yellow thread around the neck and set it in the middle of the soil dish.
- 4
Set the coconut and the leaves
Arrange five or seven mango leaves around the mouth of the kalash and rest the coconut on top, its tuft upward. Wrap the coconut in a red cloth if that is your family custom.
- 5
Light the lamp
The akhand deep is lit and, in households that keep the practice, it stays lit for all nine days. Put it where it cannot be knocked over and where oil can be topped up without moving it.
- 6
Do the sankalp and the first aarti
State the sankalp — why the family is keeping these nine days — offer haldi-kunku and flowers, and do the first aarti. From here it is the same each morning and evening until Navami.
What you need, in one list
An earthen pot or wide dish, clean soil, barley seed, a copper or brass kalash, clean water, a coconut, mango leaves, red or yellow thread, haldi-kunku, flowers, a lamp and oil or ghee.
None of it is expensive, and most of it is already in the house. What is worth buying properly is the barley seed — old seed will not sprout, and a bare dish on the ninth day is a disappointment.
Looking after the barley
Water it lightly every day. Too much water rots the seed and nothing comes up.
Keep it out of strong direct sun. The shoots are pale gold-green and that is correct — they are grown in shade.
The nine days, in order
Each night is dedicated to a form of the Devi, from Shailaputri on the first to Siddhidatri on the ninth, with Durga Ashtami on the eighth and the havan on Navami.
Many families also follow a colour for each day. The sequence changes every year because it follows the weekday each tithi falls on, so take this year’s list from a panchang rather than from last year’s.
Common questions
- Can ghatasthapana be done in a flat?
- Yes. It needs a clean corner, a low table or a cloth, and somewhere the lamp is safe. Nothing about it requires space.
- What if the barley does not sprout?
- Usually old seed or too much water. It is not considered an ill omen — replace the seed next year and water more lightly.
- Does the lamp really have to stay lit for nine days?
- Families differ. Where the akhand deep is kept, it is lit continuously and topped up. Where it is not, a lamp is lit at each aarti instead. Both are ordinary practice.
- When exactly should it be done?
- On the first day of Navratri, in a muhurat that changes every year and by place. Check a panchang or ask your family priest — this guide deliberately does not print a time.