Rakṣā Bandhan

When it falls

The full moon of Śrāvaṇa, in August. The rakhi is tied during the hours after Bhadrā, an inauspicious span, has passed; the almanac gives the window.

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

The story

A rakṣā is a protection and bandhana a tie. The oldest telling is Indra's: his wife Śacī tied a thread on his wrist before his battle with the demon Bali, and he won. Draupadī tore a strip from her sari to bind Kṛṣṇa's bleeding finger, and he counted it a debt; when she was stripped at the dicing hall he made her sari endless.

History adds Rānī Karṇāvatī of Chittor sending a rakhi to the emperor Humāyūn for help against Gujarat, and Rabindranath Tagore having Hindus and Muslims tie rakhis on one another against the partition of Bengal in 1905.

The same full moon is Nāraḷī Pūrṇimā on the Konkan coast, when fishermen offer a coconut to the sea before the boats go out again, and Avaṇi Aviṭṭam in the south, when the sacred thread is renewed.

How the day is kept

• The sister ties the rakhi on the brother's right wrist, marks his forehead with a tilak, performs āratī and feeds him a sweet; he gives a gift and promises to look after her.
• Rakhis go by post to brothers abroad, and are tied on cousins, on friends who count as brothers, and by some on soldiers at the border.
• Brāhmaṇas of the south change their sacred thread today (Upākarma) and begin the year's Veda study afresh.
• Fishing communities on the west coast float coconuts on the sea and the boats put out the next day; the monsoon ban is over.

More family bonds