Holi / Dhulandi
The morning after the bonfire — colour, and the one day the ordinary rules of conduct are suspended.
Where it is kept All India, most intensely in Braj, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Bengal; as Dol Jatra in Bengal and Odisha, Shigmo in Goa, Rang Panchami in Maharashtra five days later.
When it falls
Computed from the Moon's elongation from the Sun. The civil day is the one carrying the day after Holika Dahan.
Overview
The day after Holika Dahan is Dhulandi or Dhulivandan — colour thrown, water thrown, and the ordinary hierarchies of age, caste and gender set aside for the morning. It is the calendar's licensed inversion, and that is understood as its function rather than as a side effect.
In Braj the observances are elaborate and specific: Lathmar Holi at Barsana and Nandgaon, where the women drive the men off with staves; the flower Holi at the Banke Bihari temple; the widows' Holi at Vrindavan, which is recent and is a deliberate reversal of a prohibition. In Bengal it is Dol Jatra, the deity carried in a swing.
Where it comes from
The colour play is attached to Krishna and Radha in the Braj tradition — Krishna, dark, complaining to Yashoda about Radha's fairness, and being told to colour her as he liked. The festival is older than that reading and appears as Holaka in the Puranas and in Ratnavali and other Sanskrit drama.
Al-Biruni described it in the eleventh century, and Mughal-period painting and memoir record it in detail, including its observance at court.
Why it matters
It is the last festival of the lunar year and the first day of the spring one in several reckonings — the calendar's hinge, and its licensed disorder sits at exactly that point.
The suspension of ordinary rules is real and is the source of both the festival's character and its problems. The tradition's own phrase — bura na mano, Holi hai — is used to excuse a range of conduct that the day's licence does not, in fact, extend to.
How to celebrate
- Use natural colours — turmeric, beetroot, flowers, gulal without metal saltsSynthetic colours carry lead, chromium and mica; the eye and skin injuries are annual and documented.
- Ask before you colour anyoneThe consent point is not a modern imposition on the festival; forcing colour on someone unwilling was never the licence.
- Oil your skin and hair beforehandIt is what makes the colour come out afterwards.
- Keep water use in proportionMarch is when the north Indian water table is at its lowest; dry Holi is now the norm in many places for that reason.
What to avoid
These are not all the same kind of thing. Some are prohibitions from a named text, some are Indian law, some are practical, and some are a confusion worth not repeating. Each item says which it is.
- Do not colour anyone who has not agreed — including strangers, staff and passers-byThe festival's licence has never covered assault, and 'bura na mano' is not consent.
- Do not use silver or gold paint, engine oil, varnish or permanent dyeEvery year these cause chemical burns and eye injuries; they are not part of the festival in any form.
- Do not throw water balloonsThey cause eye injuries and fractures, and they are banned in several Indian cities.
- Do not colour animalsDogs and cows are coloured every year and the dyes are toxic to them; they cannot wash it off.
- Do not drive after bhang or alcoholThe day's road casualty figures are among the year's worst.
Where this comes from
Everything above is either computed by this site’s own panchang engine, or drawn from the works listed here. Where a custom is modern, commercial or contested, the page says so rather than presenting it as ancient.
- Bhavishya Purana and Narada Purana, for the Holaka observance.
- Harsha's Ratnavali, seventh century, for an early literary description of the colour play.
- Al-Biruni, Kitab al-Hind, eleventh century, for an outside account of the festival.
- The safety points reflect Indian medical and municipal advisories issued annually; they are practical, not scriptural, and are marked as such.
Dates are computed for the place named above and will differ elsewhere. Regional traditions vary; where two reckonings are in use, both are named rather than one being chosen silently.
Other festivals
All festivals, with dates for any year · The calendar on the home page