Kati Bihu · Kongali Bihu Festival The lean Bihu, kept when the granary is empty and the paddy is still only in ear.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Kati Bihu · Kongali Bihu
- हिन्दी
- काति बिहू
Only the names actually in use are listed. A blank script is not an omission: the day may simply not be kept there, or be kept under a different festival's name.
UTC+5:30
The date of a festival depends on the place: a tithi that ends at dusk in Chennai can still be running at dusk a thousand kilometres west, which moves the day. Sunrise and sunset here are computed for the place above.
When it falls next
Looking for the calendar this day belongs to
This day does not fall again in the next three years at this place. A few days are tied to the solar month rather than to the civil year, so a year can hold two of them or none.
What the day is
The lean Bihu, kept when the granary is empty and the paddy is still only in ear. There is no feast and no dancing in it: a saki, an earthen lamp, is lit at the foot of the tulasi in the courtyard, at the granary and at the edge of the paddy field, and a taller lamp is raised on a bamboo as the akash banti to light the way of the ancestors. Kongali means poor, and the name says what the day is.
- Deity
- Tulasi, Lakshmi
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
The hour
The rule in words
The Tula sankranti day, the last day of Ahin; the lamps are lit at dusk and left to burn down.
The fast
No fast is prescribed, though the day is kept plain by custom. The offering at the tulasi is a little rice and the lamp.
Where the regions differ
Assam alone keeps the three Bihus. The lamp set in the field at the lean turn of the year answers to Karthigai Deepam and the Kartik lamps of the rest of India, which fall in the same weeks.
Every date here is computed from the Sun and Moon for the place entered, by the rule printed beside it. A printed panchangam can differ by a day where an almanac reads a tithi at a different instant, and a family's own custom always comes first. Where the practice genuinely varies, the text says so rather than choosing for you.