Makar Sankranti / Pongal / Lohri week
The Sun enters sidereal Capricorn — the one major Indian festival fixed by the solar year, not the lunar one.
Where it is kept All India under different names: Makar Sankranti in the north and west, Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Lohri in Punjab, Magh Bihu in Assam, Uttarayan in Gujarat, Poush Sankranti in Bengal.
When it falls
Fixed by the Sun, not the Moon: the day the Sun crosses into the sidereal sign, computed on the Lahiri ayanamsa.
Overview
Every other festival on this calendar is fixed by a tithi. This one is fixed by the Sun crossing into sidereal Makara, Capricorn — which is why it falls on 14 or 15 January year after year while the lunar festivals move by a month. It is the harvest festival of the whole subcontinent, kept under a different name in nearly every state.
Pongal in Tamil Nadu runs four days and is named for the dish: rice boiled with the new milk until it spills over, which is the moment of the festival. Lohri is kept in Punjab the evening before, around a bonfire, with sesame, gur and rewri thrown into it. Uttarayan in Gujarat is the kite day. Magh Bihu in Assam builds the bhelaghar of thatch and burns it in the morning.
Where it comes from
The tradition calls this the start of Uttarayana, the Sun's northward course, and treats the following six months as the auspicious half of the year — Bhishma waited on his bed of arrows for it before dying. It is worth being exact here: the astronomical northward turn is the winter solstice, around 21 December. The sidereal entry into Capricorn is about three weeks later and drifts by roughly a day every seventy years because of precession. The festival tracks the sidereal entry, not the solstice, and the two have been separating for centuries.
That drift is visible in the historical record: the sankranti fell in late December around the fifth century CE and now falls in mid-January. A calendar that says this day is the solstice is repeating a claim that stopped being true a long time ago.
Why it matters
It opens the auspicious half of the year in the traditional reckoning, and the wedding and ceremony season that had paused for Pausha resumes.
As a harvest festival it is the most widely kept observance in India, and the only one whose date the ordinary Gregorian calendar can predict without a panchang.
How to celebrate
- Give sesame and jaggery, and say the words with itTil-gul ghya, god god bola — take the sweet and speak sweetly. The Maharashtrian form of the day.
- Bathe at a river or a tank at dawn if you keep the snanOne of the year's major bathing days, at Prayagraj, Ganga Sagar and elsewhere.
- Cook the new rice, and let it boil overPongal is named for the overflowing; it is the auspicious moment, not an accident.
- Honour the cattleMattu Pongal on the third day, and the cattle worship of Bihu and Sankranti generally.
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 use glass- or metal-coated manja for kitesBanned by the National Green Tribunal. It cuts the throats of motorcyclists and kills large numbers of birds every year in Gujarat and Rajasthan.
- Do not fly kites near power lines or from an unguarded roofFalls and electrocutions are the annual cause of death on Uttarayan.
- Do not call this the winter solsticeIt is the sidereal entry into Capricorn, about three weeks after the solstice, and drifting further by roughly a day per seventy years.
- Do not leave the kite string in trees and on wires afterwardsIt is what the birds are caught in for weeks after.
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.
- The date is computed here from the Sun's sidereal longitude on the Lahiri ayanamsa, not taken from a table.
- Mahabharata, Anushasana Parva, for Bhishma waiting for Uttarayana.
- The precessional divergence between the solstice and the sidereal sankranti is an astronomical fact, stated here because the tradition's language and the sky have parted company.
- National Green Tribunal order of 2017 on synthetic and glass-coated manja.
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