Festival · India · 20 October 2026
Dussehra: Gold and the Triumph of Good
Dussehra arrives on the tenth day, after the nine nights of Navratri, and it carries the mood of a festival that has reached its conclusion. It celebrates a victory, and in much of India it is also regarded as one of the most fortunate days of the year on which to begin something new, gold included.
Two victories, one day
The festival goes by two names, and each points to a different story. As Vijayadashami, ‘the victorious tenth’, it marks the goddess Durga’s defeat of the buffalo-demon Mahishasura after nine days of battle, which is why it follows directly on from Navratri. As Dussehra, it recalls Rama’s victory over Ravana, the ten-headed king of Lanka, told in the Ramayana. Across northern India the nights of Navratri are given over to Ramlila, dramatic retellings of that epic, and on Dussehra evening tall effigies of Ravana, often accompanied by his brother Kumbhakarna and son Meghnad, are set alight in open grounds before large crowds.
In Bengal the same day is Bijoya Dashami, the close of Durga Puja. The images of the goddess that have been honoured in pandals through the festival are carried in procession to the river and immersed, and married women take part in sindoor khela, smearing one another with vermilion before the goddess is sent on her way. In much of the south, families perform Ayudha Puja on the preceding day, honouring the tools of their trade, from books and musical instruments to vehicles and machinery, as a way of giving thanks for the means of their livelihood.
Mysuru’s golden howdah
The most literal gold of the day is found in Mysuru, where Dasara has been the state festival of the old kingdom for centuries. Its climax is the Jamboo Savari, a procession through the city in which an image of the goddess Chamundeshwari rides in a golden howdah of around 750 kilograms, carried by a lead elephant trained for weeks in advance to bear the weight. The procession leaves the palace grounds at an auspicious hour set by astrologers and is followed through the streets by bands, tableaux and the other elephants of the Dasara troupe, before a torchlight parade closes the evening.
It is an unusual sight in the modern world, a quantity of gold carried in public not as a store of wealth but as an instrument of devotion, and it says something about the way the metal is understood in Indian religious life. The howdah is not displayed because it is valuable; it is valuable because of what it is used to carry.
Leaves of gold, and new beginnings
In Maharashtra the gold of Dussehra is gentler. Friends and relatives exchange the leaves of the apta tree, called sona, or gold, pressing them into one another’s hands with a greeting to take gold and stay as precious as gold. The custom is said to recall an older story of a young scholar, Kautsa, whose debt to his teacher was paid when a shower of gold coins fell from the heavens onto the leaves of an apta tree. The leaves are a blessing rather than a gift of value, and they are often followed by visits, sweets and the buying of a small piece of real gold.
That reflects the day’s wider standing. Dussehra is one of the three and a half days in the year, the sade teen muhurat, regarded in Maharashtra and beyond as auspicious in their entirety, so that no particular hour need be chosen. Families use it to buy a vehicle, move into a home, start a business or a course of study, or simply to buy a coin or an ornament. For jewellers it falls in the middle of the busiest stretch of their year, between the reopening of buying at Navratri and the peak of Dhanteras and Diwali three weeks later.
Gold held in trust
Looked at as a whole, the gold of Dussehra is rarely about display. It is carried in procession, exchanged as a blessing, or bought on a day chosen because it is thought to give whatever is begun a good foundation. The distinction between gold as spectacle and gold as something held in trust runs through much of India’s relationship with the metal, and it helps explain why demand tends to be renewed each autumn regardless of where the price happens to sit. The occasion comes first; the amount is adjusted to suit the year.
A note on dates. Dussehra falls on the tenth day of the bright half of the lunar month of Ashvin, the day after Navratri ends. In 2026 it falls on 20 October; the date moves each year with the lunisolar calendar.
Related reading: Navratri: Nine Nights and the Return of Gold · Dhanteras: India’s Day for Buying Gold · Diwali: The Festival of Light and Gold
Dussehra falls on 20 October 2026. Find it, and the festivals around it, on the Gold for All Seasons calendar.