Navpad Oli is nine consecutive days of ayambil, one bland meal a day, kept from the seventh tithi of the bright fortnight to the full moon. It is kept twice each year, in Chaitra and in Ashvina, and each of the nine days is given to one of the nine posts of the Siddhachakra. In 2026 the Chaitra Oli ran Wednesday 25 March to Thursday 2 April, and the Ashvina Oli runs Saturday 17 to Monday 26 October.
It is the largest sustained austerity in the Jain year that ordinary householders keep in large numbers, and it is almost entirely absent from general coverage of Jain practice, which tends to stop at Paryushan.
Navpad Oli 2026
Chaitra Oli: Wednesday 25 March to Thursday 2 April 2026 · Chaitra Shukla 7 to Purnima. Parana on 3 April.
Ashvina Oli: Saturday 17 to Monday 26 October 2026 · Ashvina Shukla 7 to Purnima.
Note the arithmetic in the second row. Nine tithis occupying ten civil days means a tithi is repeated that fortnight, and a repeated tithi is exactly where sanghs diverge. At least one published calendar gives the Ashvina Oli as beginning on Friday 16 October. Take the Ashvina full moon as the fixed point and the start day from your own sangh.
The nine pads
The Siddhachakra, also called the Navpad, is the arrangement of nine positions worshipped in this observance: the five Parameshthi, the beings worthy of reverence, and the four qualities by which liberation is reached.
| Day | Pad | What it is | Colour | Count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arihanta | The omniscient teacher, still embodied | White | 12 |
| 2 | Siddha | The liberated soul, free of body and rebirth | Red | 8 |
| 3 | Acharya | The head of the ascetic order | Yellow | 36 |
| 4 | Upadhyaya | The teacher of scripture to the ascetics | Green | 25 |
| 5 | Sadhu | The ascetic, monk or nun | Black | 27 |
| 6 | Samyak Darshana | Right faith | White | 67 |
| 7 | Samyak Jnana | Right knowledge | White | 51 |
| 8 | Samyak Charitra | Right conduct | White | 70 |
| 9 | Samyak Tapa | Right austerity | White | 50 |
The count column is the number of qualities traditionally enumerated for that pad, and it is not decorative: it is the number of khamasana prostrations, swastika offerings and kayotsarga recitations performed on that day, alongside twenty navkarvali, twenty rounds of the day’s mantra on the rosary. Day eight involves seventy of each. The observance is physically substantial before you count the fasting.
The structure is worth reading as an argument. The first five days honour persons; the last four honour qualities. The four qualities are the ones the five persons possess, so the sequence moves from the exemplar to the thing exemplified, and ends on tapa, austerity, which is what the person keeping the Oli is at that moment doing.
Ayambil is the whole practice
Ayambil is one meal, taken seated in a single sitting, of boiled grain and pulse: no salt, oil, ghee, milk, curd, sugar, fruit, green vegetable or spice, with boiled water to drink. It is not a partial fast. It is a complete removal of taste while the body continues to be fed.
That is the mechanism. Rasa-parityaga, the giving up of tasty food, is one of the six external austerities of the Tattvartha Sutra, and ayambil is its most exact expression: hunger is not the instrument, and the absence of any pleasure in eating is. Nine days of it is a different kind of difficulty from nine days of hunger, and people who have kept both usually say so.
The wider vocabulary of graded Jain fasting, and how ayambil sits against upvas, ekasana and the rest, is on the fasting page. The pachkhan times that govern each day of an Oli are fractions of your own local sunrise and are computed on the Jain Panchang.
On the colours. Many households take the ayambil food in the colour of the day’s pad: white rice on the Arihanta day, something red on the Siddha day, and so on through the five. It is a widely followed devotional practice rather than a requirement, and a great many people keep plain ayambil throughout the nine days. Both are ordinary.
Shripal and Mayanasundari
The story read across the nine days, in Gujarati sanghs almost universally as the Shripal Raja no Ras, is the reason the observance exists in its present form.
Mayanasundari, a king’s daughter, told her father that a person’s condition follows from their own karma rather than from his favour. He took offence and married her to Shripal, who was afflicted with leprosy and travelling with a company of seven hundred others in the same condition. She went with him without complaint.
They came to the ascetic Munichandra, who taught them the worship of the Siddhachakra and the keeping of ayambil across nine days. Shripal recovered, and in the traditional account so did the seven hundred. The couple were instructed to keep the Oli twice a year for four and a half years, and the story follows Shripal’s subsequent life at length.
The tradition does not read this as a cure. It reads it as the illustration of Mayanasundari’s original claim: that karma is bound and shed by the soul’s own act, that no external authority hands out condition, and that the response to a difficult karmic period is practice rather than petition. That is the same position the Jain reading of a birth chart takes, and it is why this story sits comfortably on an astrology site while a great deal of remedial literature does not.
The four-and-a-half-year vow
The full observance is not nine days. It is nine Olis, kept twice a year for four and a half years, eighty-one days of ayambil in total, closed with an udyapan, the formal completion ceremony. Those who complete it are counted as having done Navpad Oli properly; those who keep a single Oli, or a few days of one, have kept what they kept, which the tradition treats as real.
The Oli is also described as shashvati, eternal: kept not only here and now but, in the traditional cosmology, in all the regions and all the time-cycles in which the dharma is present. That is presented on this site as the tradition’s self-understanding, in the same way the Jambudvipa cosmography is, and not as a claim about geography.
Why Chaitra and Ashvina
Both Olis end on a full moon, and both fall in the two months that sit at the hinges of the Indian year, immediately before the hot season and immediately after the monsoon retreat begins to lift. The Ashvina Oli ends on the Ashvina full moon; the Chaitra Oli ends on the Chaitra full moon.
The honest observation, and it is the same one this site makes about Paryushan, is that these dates are calendrical rather than elective. Nobody selected Shukla 7 to Purnima for a favourable configuration. The tithis are fixed by rule, and what makes the days significant is what is done on them. The full-year context is on Jain festivals 2026.
Where the traditions differ
Navpad Oli in this form is characteristically Shvetambara, and this page describes Shvetambara practice.
| Shvetambara | Digambara | |
|---|---|---|
| Nine-day ayambil Oli in Chaitra and Ashvina | Central, kept in very large numbers, institutionalised in ayambil shalas | Not the characteristic observance |
| Siddhachakra | Worshipped as the Navpad yantra, the focus of the Oli | The Siddhachakra is honoured, with its own vidhan traditions and a different ritual form |
| What is kept in those months | Navpad Oli | The Ashtahnika Parvas at the close of Phalguna, Ashadha and Kartika |
| Reading during the days | Shripal Raja no Ras, over nine days | Not part of the observance |
Neither is an abbreviation of the other. The nine positions of the Siddhachakra are common ground across the tradition; the nine-day ayambil observance built on them, and the narrative attached to it, developed in the Shvetambara line.
Practical notes
- Ayambil shalas. Most sanghs of any size run one, and during the Olis they run at capacity. Keeping the Oli at home is entirely possible but the shala exists precisely because ayambil food is tedious to prepare correctly for one person.
- Nine days is a real load. Salt is removed as well as sugar and fat. People on blood-pressure medication, and anyone with a condition affected by sodium or by a restricted diet, should be having a conversation with a doctor and with their sangh before starting, not during.
- Partial is not failure. Keeping four days of an Oli is keeping four days of ayambil, which is four days of ayambil more than most.
- The counts are heavy. Seventy khamasanas on the eighth day is a physical undertaking for older people, and sanghs routinely adapt. Ask rather than assume.
Frequently asked questions
↳ When is Navpad Oli 2026?
The Chaitra Oli ran from Wednesday 25 March to Thursday 2 April 2026, Chaitra Shukla 7 to the Chaitra full moon, with the parana on 3 April. The Ashvina Oli runs Saturday 17 to Monday 26 October 2026, ending on the Ashvina full moon. Nine tithis occupying ten civil days in October indicates a repeated tithi, and at least one published calendar gives the start as Friday 16 October, so take the start day from your own sangh's panchang.
↳ What are the nine pads of the Siddhachakra?
Arihanta, Siddha, Acharya, Upadhyaya and Sadhu, which are the five Parameshthi and are the same five honoured in the Navkar Mantra, followed by Samyak Darshana, Samyak Jnana, Samyak Charitra and Samyak Tapa, which are right faith, right knowledge, right conduct and right austerity. The first five are persons; the last four are the qualities those persons possess. One pad is given to each of the nine days of the Oli.
↳ What can you eat during ayambil?
One meal a day, taken seated in a single sitting, of boiled grain and pulse, with no salt, oil, ghee, milk, curd, sugar, fruit, green vegetable or spice, and boiled water to drink. Nothing is eaten outside that sitting. Many households take the food in the colour of the day's pad during the first five days, which is devotional practice rather than a requirement. The point of the vow is the removal of taste, not the removal of food.
↳ How many years does Navpad Oli take to complete?
Four and a half years. The Oli is kept twice a year, nine days each time, making nine Olis and eighty-one days of ayambil in total, and the completion is marked with an udyapan ceremony. Keeping a single Oli, or part of one, is ordinary and is not treated as a failed attempt at the longer vow. The four-and-a-half-year form follows the instruction given to Shripal and Mayanasundari in the story read during the days.
↳ Who were Shripal and Mayanasundari?
Mayanasundari told her father that a person's condition follows from their own karma rather than from a king's favour, and was married in anger to Shripal, who had leprosy. The ascetic Munichandra taught them the worship of the Siddhachakra and nine days of ayambil, after which Shripal recovered. The tradition reads the account as a demonstration of Mayanasundari's original claim rather than as a cure: karma is shed by the soul's own act, and the response to a hard period is practice.
↳ Do Digambara Jains keep Navpad Oli?
The nine-day ayambil Oli in Chaitra and Ashvina, with the Shripal narrative read across the days, is characteristically Shvetambara and this page describes Shvetambara practice. The Siddhachakra itself is honoured across the tradition and the Digambara line has its own vidhan forms for it. The Digambara observances falling in those parts of the year are the Ashtahnika Parvas at the close of Phalguna, Ashadha and Kartika. Neither is an abbreviation of the other.
Related
- Paryushan fasting: every level, explained properly
- Akshaya Tritiya and Varshitap: the year-long fast and how it ends
- Paryushana 2026: dates, practice and what actually happens
- Pratikraman: turning back, and what happens in one
- Jain Panchang: parva days and pachkhan times for your city
- Jain festivals 2026: the complete calendar
Sources. The Chaitra Oli span of 25 March to 2 April 2026 was checked against two independent published calendars and agreed. The Ashvina span of 17 to 26 October 2026 is what published panchangs carry, but nine tithis across ten civil days indicates a repeated tithi and at least one published source gives 16 October as the start; the divergence is reported rather than resolved, and the stable value is Ashvina Shukla 7 to Purnima. The nine pads, their colours and the counts of khamasana, swastika, kayotsarga and navkarvali follow the standard Shvetambara Navpad vidhi. Rasa-parityaga as one of the six external austerities is from the Tattvartha Sutra chapter nine. The Shripal and Mayanasundari narrative follows the Shripal Raja no Ras as it is read during the Oli; it is presented as the tradition's own text, not as history. The description of the Oli as shashvati is reported as the tradition's self-understanding in the same way this site treats the Jambudvipa cosmography. Health notes are practical, not doctrinal. Corrections are seva: tell us.