[7][8] The festival falls on the ninth day of the bright half (Shukla Paksha) of the lunar cycle of Chaitra (March–April), the first month in the Hindu calendar.

[12] Vaishnava Hindus celebrate the festival by visiting temples, praying, fasting, listening to spiritual discourses and singing bhajans or kirtans (devotional songs).

[5][14] Important celebrations on this day take place at Ayodhya's Ram Mandir and numerous Rama temples all over India.

Desperate for an heir, Dasharatha organized a sacrifice to be conducted under the authority of the sage, Rishyasringa, which concluded with a celestial figure that emerged from a fire with a pot of rice and milk.

[10] These include Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh),[10] Rameswaram (Tamil Nadu), Bhadrachalam (Telangana) and Sitamarhi (Bihar).

Many of these traditions include reading and listening to discourses from the Ramayana,[17] organizing ratha yatras (chariot processions), charitable events, hosting a wedding procession (kalyanotsavam) of Rama and Sita,[6] and offering reverence to Sita, Lakshmana, and Hanuman who have played important roles in Rama's life story.

[17] In Karnataka, Rama Navami is celebrated by the local mandalis (organizations) and streets, by dispersing free panakam (a jaggery drink) and some food.

Additionally, in Bengaluru, Karnataka, the Sree Ramaseva Mandali, R.C.T (R.) Chamrajpet, organizes India's most prestigious, month-long classical music festival.

[17] A number of ISKCON temples introduced a more prominent celebration of the occasion of the holiday with the view of addressing needs of growing native Hindu congregation.

[21] On April 17, 2024, the first Rama Navami after the consecration of Ayodhya's Ram Temple was celebrated by thousands of devotees across India.

[30] The descendants of Indian indentured servants who were forced to leave India due to famines and then promised jobs in colonial South Africa before 1910 in British-owned plantations and mines, and thereafter lived under the South African apartheid regime, continued to celebrate Rama Navami by reciting the Ramayana and by singing bhajans of Tyagaraja and Bhadrachala Ramdas.