Makara Saṅkrānti

When it falls

The day the sidereal Sun enters Makara (Capricorn), 14 or 15 January every year. Unlike the lunar festivals it hardly moves; over centuries it drifts a day later every seventy years or so.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

Saṅkrānti is the Sun's passage from one sign into the next. Of the twelve in a year this is the one India keeps, because it opens Uttarāyaṇa, the Sun's northward run and the lengthening of days. Bhīṣma, wounded on the battlefield of Kurukṣetra, lay on a bed of arrows for weeks waiting for this turn before he let go of life, since a death in Uttarāyaṇa carries no return.

The same day is Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Māgh Bihu in Assam, Uttarāyaṇ in Gujarat, Pedda Paṇḍuga in Andhra, Māghī after Lohṛī in Punjab, Pouṣ Saṅkrānti in Bengal, Khicaṛī in the Hindi belt, and Māghe Saṅkrānti in Nepal. Every region has its own harvest to give thanks for.

How the day is kept

• A bath in a river at dawn; the largest gathering is at Gaṅgāsāgar, where the Gaṅgā meets the sea, with a million pilgrims some years.
• Sweets of sesame (til) and jaggery (guḍ) are made and exchanged in Maharashtra with the words til-guḍ ghyā, goḍ goḍ bolā: take the sweet, speak sweetly.
• Ahmedabad and Jaipur fly kites from every roof, and the sky is cut string and paper by noon; Uttarāyaṇ in Gujarat is a two-day public holiday for it.
• Andhra and Telangana keep three days: Bhogī with a bonfire of old things, Saṅkrānti with new clothes and the ancestors, Kanuma for the cattle; the gaṅgireddu (decorated bull) goes door to door with its keeper.
• Lohṛī in Punjab is the bonfire the night before, with sesame, popcorn and jaggery thrown into it.

At the table

Tilguḍ laḍḍū and cikkī, khicaṛī of rice and lentils, pongal in the south, pīṭhā in Assam and Bengal, undhiyu in Gujarat, and in Andhra ariselu, the fried rice-and-jaggery cake.

More solar turning points