Latitude, longitude and time zone 13.08, 80.27
Asia/Kolkata · UTC+5:30
The date of a festival depends on the place.
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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
Kerala calendar, computed for Chennai
- Friday, 15 January 2027
- Saturday, 15 January 2028
- Sunday, 14 January 2029
Where Makaravilakku · Makara Sankranti falls on the solar year, and how far the date moves between occurrences.
- 2027: 15 Jan
- 2028: 15 Jan, the same day of the year
- 2029: 14 Jan, 1 day earlier
The dates, year by year
Kerala calendar, computed for Chennai
What the day is
Makaram 1 at Sabarimala. The thiruvabharanam, the golden ornaments of Ayyappan, is carried on foot from Pandalam and reaches the sannidhanam at dusk; as the deity is decked, the Makara Jyothi is seen on the eastern horizon and a light appears three times on the Ponnambalamedu hill opposite, which is the Makaravilakku the pilgrims wait for.
- Deity
- Ayyappan
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
Significance
The Pandalam royal family raised Ayyappan as Manikandan, the child the king found by the Pampa, and the ornaments carried to the hill each Makaram are theirs to send, as a family would dress its own son. The legend says he went into the forest for tigress milk to cure the queen's feigned illness, killed the demoness Mahishi and chose Sabarimala as his seat, and the pilgrims take the kite that circles above the ornament boxes on the way as his sign. The Devaswom Board has said plainly that the light on Ponnambalamedu is a lamp lit in ritual, as the Malayaraya forest people once lit it, and that the Makara Jyothi is the star that rises at the same hour; for the pilgrim the moment is the same. The festival goes on for some days after, with the processions to Malikappuram, and the temple closes once the representative of the Pandalam family has had his darshan.
How it is kept
The puja as a household does it, in order. Tick each step as it is done.
Makaravilakku · Makara Sankranti: how it is kept
Keep ready
- a nilavilakku with five wicks
- ghee or gingelly oil
- thechi and tulasi flowers
- a picture of Ayyappan
- camphor for the arati
- a coconut to break when the mala is taken off
- the pilgrim's irumudi with its ghee coconut
The steps
0 of 7 done
What is cooked
The prasadams of Sabarimala, the aravana payasam of rice, jaggery and ghee and the appam, are carried home in tins and shared out. At home the day is vegetarian, a sharkara payasam is made for the returning pilgrim, and fish and meat come back into the kitchen only once his mala is off. Palakkad and the Tamil families of Kerala make sweet pongal for the sankranti, as Tamil Nadu does.
The hour
Clock times for Friday, 15 January 2027 at Chennai
The first day of Makaram, the day the Sun enters Makara; the deepam is lit and the light looked for just after sunset.
The main rite. The Makara sankrama puja is done at the moment the Sun enters Makaram, whatever the hour. The thiruvabharanam reaches the sannidhanam at dusk, and the deeparadhana and the lights on the hill follow just after sunset.
| Instant | Time | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Sunset | 18:01 | the moment the sun goes down |
| Pradosha kala | 18:01 to 20:25 | the 2 h 24 min after sunset, the evening worship hour |
Sunrise 06:35, sunset 18:01, UTC+5.5. These are the instants the rule is read at, not the temple's own puja times, which every temple prints for itself.
The day itself
| What | When | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Tithi | Shukla Saptami from previous day 13:59 until 14:14 | then Shukla Ashtami until next day 13:44 |
| Nakshatra | Revati until 23:51 | then Ashwini until next day 23:39 |
| Rahu kaal | 10:52 to 12:18 (1 h 26 min) | the eighth of the daylight left alone for a beginning |
| Yamaganda | 15:10 to 16:36 (1 h 26 min) | the eighth ruled by Yama, also avoided |
| Gulika | 08:01 to 09:27 (1 h 26 min) | the eighth of Saturn’s son; what is done in it is said to repeat |
| Abhijit | 11:55 to 12:41 (0 h 46 min) | the midday muhurta, good for most things |
| Moonrise | 11:19 | moonset next day 00:05 |
For Friday, 15 January 2027 at Chennai. A time marked "previous day" or "next day" is on the clock of that day.
The fast
Pilgrims complete the forty-one day vratam that began in Vrischikam and break it after the darshan.
What is avoided
The pilgrim does not break the vratam or take off the mala before the darshan, and the house cooks no meat or fish until he is home. Those on the hill keep to the viewpoints the police have opened and do not crowd the slopes or climb trees, since crushes there have cost lives.
The name
The same day, in every language that has a word for it
Where the regions differ
The same solar ingress is Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Makara Sankranti in the Telugu and Kannada country and Makar Sankranti in the north.
In other regions
- Tamil Nadu
- Tamil Nadu keeps Makaram 1 as Thai 1, Pongal, with the new rice boiled over in the courtyard at sunrise, and Tamil pilgrims are among the largest groups on the hill for the jyothi.
- Kerala (the dates above)
- Kerala's great evening: the thiruvabharanam procession from Pandalam is followed by crowds along the road, and the whole state watches the lights at dusk.
- Telugu
- The Telugu country keeps it as Makara Sankranti, the Pedda Panduga, with Bhogi before it and Kanuma after, and the Ayyappa deeksha groups of Andhra and Telangana time their climb for this evening.
- Kannada
- Karnataka keeps Makara Sankranti with ellu bella, sesame, jaggery, coconut and groundnut shared among neighbours, and with the cattle decked and led over a fire in the villages.
- North India
- The north keeps Makar Sankranti with a dip in the Ganga at Prayag and in the other rivers, gifts of sesame and khichdi, and the kites of Uttarayan in Gujarat and Rajasthan.
- Maharashtra
- Maharashtra shares tilgul, sesame and jaggery sweets, with the old wish that the other should speak sweetly, and married women hold the haldi kunku.
- Bengal
- Bengal keeps Poush Sankranti with pithe puli, rice cakes filled with coconut and date-palm jaggery, and pilgrims bathe at Gangasagar.
- Punjab
- Punjab keeps it as Maghi, the morning after the Lohri bonfire, and Sikhs gather at Muktsar for the mela in memory of the Forty Liberated Ones.
- Assam
- Assam keeps Magh Bihu, the harvest feast, with the meji bonfire at dawn after the feasting night of Uruka.
- Sri Lanka
- The Tamils of Sri Lanka keep the same day as Thai Pongal, boiling the new rice over in the courtyard at sunrise.
- Nepal
- Nepal keeps Maghe Sankranti with sesame laddu, chaku, ghee and sweet potatoes, and a bath at the river confluences.
The dates above are the Kerala reckoning, because that is the calendar this key belongs to. Switch the tradition on the calendar page to see how another one dates the same day.
Greeting
What is said to family and friends on the day
സ്വാമിയേ ശരണമയ്യപ്പാSwamiye saranam Ayyappa
Where this day is kept
Nearest first from Chennai, with what is recorded about each.
- Pathanamthitta, Kerala
The entry for this day names Sabarimala. The gazetteer line names the day as the edge of this temple’s open season. Makaram 1 at Sabarimala.
Temples of Ayyappan near you
Not recorded for this day in particular: the nearest temples of the day's own gods, for a reader whose own temple is not listed above.
- Kollam, Kerala · Dharma Sastha as the householder, with Poorna and Pushkala
- Kollam, Kerala · Sastha as a boy, in the balaka bhava, beside the river
Your family's own temple comes first, and its calendar is the one that decides.
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A temple is listed here only where the gazetteer's own line names this day, or where this day's own entry names the town, or where the day belongs to the ancestors or the nagas and the temple is recorded for that rite. Where neither table says anything, nothing is listed as kept for the day; where fewer than three are, the nearest temples of the day's own gods are added under a heading of their own.
Mantras
The prayers said with the day. Each opens with its words and meaning.
Fixing a day for it
The muhurtham rules for a puja held alongside, whose day the family chooses
Makaravilakku · Makara Sankranti's own date is set by the rule in "The hour" above, and no muhurtham moves it. For a temple visit around it, whose day the family does choose, the finder below applies these rules.
A temple visit, or the first darshan at a new temple. No weekday is ruled out: Tuesday belongs to Murugan and the Amman, Saturday to Perumal and Sani, so the day usually follows the deity rather than the almanac. Ashtami and Chaturdasi are the two tithis held back for darshan, with the standing exceptions of Sivaratri on Krishna Chaturdasi and Kala Bhairava Ashtami, which are kept on those very days. Rahu kaal, Yamaganda and Gulika kaal are not scored here; the panchangam page prints them for the day you pick, and most families simply wait them out.
Every date here is computed from the Sun and Moon for the place entered, by the rule printed beside it.
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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.