Pahili Raja Festival Three days in which the earth is held to menstruate before the first rains, so no plough is put to her, nothing is dug, cut or sown, and she is left to rest.

1. Monday, 14 June 2027
2. Wednesday, 14 June 2028
3. Thursday, 14 June 2029

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Worked out for Chennai, Lahiri ayanamsa. A date is a function of the place: set yours above and the next three come back for where you are.

Three days in which the earth is held to menstruate before the first rains, so no plough is put to her, nothing is dug, cut or sown, and she is left to rest. The days belong to the unmarried girls of Odisha, who stop every household task, wear new saris and alata on the feet, swing on the rope swings hung from the mango trees singing the Raja doli songs, and eat the podapitha, a cake of rice, coconut and jaggery baked slowly overnight. The men play kabaddi and the village card games, and the whole of coastal Odisha stops work for the three days.

Deity

Bhudevi, Parvati

Kind

Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.

The last day of Jyestha, the day before the Mithuna sankranti, which is the first of the three days of Raja. Sajabaja, the day of sweeping and preparation, is the day before it again.

This day carries no instant that can be put on a clock: it is fixed by the tithi or the nakshatra running at sunrise, or by a moonrise the app does not compute. The rule above is the whole of it.

No fast is kept. The podapitha, manda, kakara and chhena pitha are made for the three days, and nothing is cooked that needs the earth to be dug for it.

English

Pahili Raja

ଓଡ଼ିଆ

ପହିଲି ରଜ

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.

Odisha keeps it as Raja and the Odia diaspora with it; the same idea of the resting earth is kept in Assam as the Ambubachi of Kamakhya, and in parts of Bengal and Jharkhand as Ambubachi or Raja Sankranti, with the dates fixed by each calendar's own solar rule. Pahili Raja is the day the girls put away the grinding stone and the knife, the swings go up and the first podapitha comes out of the covered fire.

The dates above are the Odisha 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.

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.