Kartik Purnima and Dev Deepawali

The Padma Purana treats the whole of Kartik as carrying particular merit for two things: bathing before dawn, and offering lamps. Neither is a festival act. Both are daily, both are small, and the Purnima is where a month of them finishes.

The night has another name. The Shiva Purana tells how Tripurasura built three cities and made himself safe inside them, and how Shiva destroyed all three with a single arrow and was called Tripurari for it. The devas are said to have come down to the Ganga to celebrate, and that is the reasoning behind Dev Deepawali, the Diwali of the gods.

One thing to be clear about, because it is the kind of thing we would rather say than leave you to find out. The burning of the three cities is in our texts, told at length. The date is not. No chapter places it on Kartik Purnima. That the night is kept as its anniversary is something our households have carried, and it is carried everywhere, and it is not something a text sets down.

What makes this day worth its own guide is where it sits. Fifteen days ago every lamp was the only light in the dark. Tonight the moon has made them unnecessary, and the tradition asks for them anyway. A lamp lit in the dark is useful. A lamp given away under a full moon is giving and nothing else — which is what daan means, and what the whole month has been building toward.