Pana Sankranti · Maha Bishuba Sankranti Festival The Odia new year, the day the Sun enters Mesha and the solar year turns.

English

Pana Sankranti · Maha Bishuba Sankranti

ଓଡ଼ିଆ

ପଣା ସଂକ୍ରାନ୍ତି · ମହା ବିଷୁବ ସଂକ୍ରାନ୍ତି

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.

1. Wednesday, 14 April 2027
2. Thursday, 13 April 2028
3. Saturday, 14 April 2029

See the whole year on the calendar →

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.

The Odia new year, the day the Sun enters Mesha and the solar year turns. Its name is the pana, a drink of water, jaggery, green coconut, ripe banana, pepper and bel fruit offered to the deities and to everyone who comes to the door, and the basundhara, an earthen pot pierced with a small hole and hung over the tulasi so that it drips on the plant all day for the cooling of the earth. The same day is the Hanuman Jayanti of Odisha, the Jhamu Jatra of fire walking at the Thakurani shrines, and the day the Patuas pierce themselves at the Sarala and Mangala temples.

Deity

Surya, Hanuman, Mangala

Kind

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

The civil day the Sun crosses into Mesha. Odisha takes that day as Baisakha 1 whatever the hour of the crossing, which is why Pana Sankranti can fall a day before the Tamil and Malayalam new year of the same ingress.

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 pana is drunk and given away, and the first meal of the year is a feast.

Odisha keeps it as Pana Sankranti and Maha Bishuba Sankranti; the same sankramana is Puthandu in Tamil Nadu, Vishu in Kerala, Poila Boishakh in Bengal, Bohag Bihu in Assam and Vaisakhi in the Punjab, and because each of the five uses a different rule for which civil day the ingress belongs to, they can be spread over three days.

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.

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.

Find a day for temple visit →

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.