Turn a silver pendant over and look at the back. There is, sometimes, a tiny stamped number pressed into the metal: 925. Sometimes there is nothing at all. Most people who buy silver for Dhanteras never check, because the buying itself feels like the whole of the gesture. But that small mark, or its absence, is one of the clearest facts standing between "I bought silver" and "I know what I bought." This is a short guide to the one decision a Dhanteras shopping list usually flattens: choosing a pendant, a thing meant to be worn, rather than a coin or an idol, meant to be kept.
The Mark on the Back
A hallmark on silver, where it exists, states three things plainly: the purity number (925, most often, on jewellery), the BIS logo, and a mark identifying the assaying and hallmarking centre that tested the piece. Together they are a claim, not a decoration, and the claim is optional. Gold hallmarking has been mandatory in India since June 2021; silver hallmarking, under the relevant standard, IS 2112, remains a voluntary scheme. A jeweller can hallmark silver correctly and honestly, and plenty do, but nothing in law requires it the way it requires it for gold. From August 2025, BIS also introduced a HUID-based option for silver, again voluntary, letting a buyer trace a specific piece back to its assaying centre if the mark is present. It is worth adding, honestly, that a hallmark is only as reliable as the centre that struck it, and cases of incorrect or forged marks have surfaced in the market before now, so a mark is strong information, not a certificate that ends the question. The plain position for a buyer is to look for the purity number, the BIS logo, and the assaying-centre mark together, treat their presence as useful information rather than a guarantee, and treat their absence as a question worth asking rather than proof of anything.
What Dhanteras Actually Names
The word itself is a compound: Dhan, wealth, and Teras, from Trayodashi, the thirteenth day of the lunar fortnight. It falls in the dark half of the month of Kartika, two days ahead of Diwali, opening the run of festival days rather than closing it. Buying silver, gold or new utensils on this day is traditionally treated as an invitation to prosperity for the year ahead, not simply a purchase that happens to fall on a convenient date.
Underneath that wealth-shopping frame sits an older, health-rooted one. In the most widely told version of the story, Dhanvantari emerged during Samudra Manthan, the churning of the cosmic ocean, carrying a pot of amrita, and is regarded as the physician of the devas and an avatar of Vishnu; traditions differ on exactly which other figures surfaced in that same churning, so this is fairer called a widely-told telling than the only one. In 2016 the Ministry of AYUSH formally recognised the connection, declaring Dhanvantari Jayanti, which falls on Dhanteras, as National Ayurveda Day, first observed on 28 October 2016. From 2025 the ministry moved the fixed international observance of Ayurveda Day to 23 September, separate from the festival itself, though Dhanteras remains the day most households still associate with Dhanvantari at home.
A Pendant Is Not a Coin, and Not an Idol
Most Dhanteras buying customs list a coin, a small idol of Lakshmi or Ganesha, new utensils, and jewellery in the same breath, as though they were interchangeable. They are not. A coin or an idol is typically set on an altar, or in a cupboard, and looked at rather than handled daily. A pendant is worn: against skin, under a collar, through a working day, through sweat and cold water and the occasional knock against a doorframe.
That difference in use is also a difference in metal. Fine silver, stamped 999, is 99.9 per cent pure and notably soft, which is exactly why it suits coins, bullion and idols handled gently rather than knocked about. Sterling silver, stamped 925, is alloyed with roughly 7.5 per cent of another metal, almost always copper, and that copper is not a compromise: it stiffens the metal enough to hold its shape through a year of daily contact instead of thinning or bending out of true. A pendant meant for the neck is properly 925, not 999, for a metallurgical reason rather than a marketing one.
Wearing It: What Tarnish Actually Means
Genuine sterling silver darkens with time, because the copper in the alloy reacts with sulphur compounds in ordinary air. This is not a defect; it is a property of the real thing, and it happens faster to a piece that is actually worn than to one left in a drawer. I keep a mala on hand for daily japa, and after enough handling its beads change colour and texture in a way no polish cloth would reverse, simply because a hand has been on them every day. A worn pendant follows the same logic: tarnish is less a chore to prevent than a quiet record that the piece has been living the life it was bought for.
The honest test of a Dhanteras pendant, then, is not how it looks in the box on the day itself but whether it gets worn afterward. If it stays in a pouch until next year's Dhanteras, the metal question was never really the point. So the practical version of this guide is short: check the back for the mark before you buy, ask plainly whether the silver is 925 or 999 and let the answer match what you intend to do with it, and once it is in your hands, wear it enough that it eventually needs a clean.
