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
Tamil Nadu calendar, computed for Chennai
- Friday, 15 January 2027
- Saturday, 15 January 2028
- Sunday, 14 January 2029
Where Pongal · Thai Pongal 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 four days of Pongal
Part of the same festival, in order, in the Tamil Nadu calendar
- Bhogi …
- Pongal · Thai Pongal(this page) …
- Mattu Pongal …
- Kaanum Pongal …
The dates, year by year
Tamil Nadu calendar, computed for Chennai
What the day is
Thai 1, the day the Sun enters Magaram and turns north, and the harvest thanksgiving of Tamil Nadu. New rice from the harvest is boiled with milk in a clay pot in the open until it rises and boils over, and the family calls out "Pongalo Pongal" at the moment it does; the first pongal is offered to the Sun on a plantain leaf with sugar cane and turmeric still in leaf.
- Deity
- Surya
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
Significance
Pongal is a thanksgiving in three directions: to the Sun who ripened the crop, to the cattle who ploughed for it, and to the land and the farmer, and the four days from Bhogi to Kaanum Pongal give each its turn. The word means to boil over, and the pot that overflows in the open is the family's wish that its house should overflow the same way; in many villages the side on which the milk spills is watched, the east being the best. Thai also ends Margazhi, the month in which no weddings are held, and the old saying that the birth of Thai opens a way is why weddings and new beginnings are fixed from now on. Parents send the pongal seer, a gift of rice, jaggery, a pot, sugar cane and new clothes, to their married daughters, and those who work for the house are given money and clothes. The Sangam poems already speak of the girls' bath in the month of Thai, so the season was a feast long before any calendar named it.
How it is kept
The puja as a household does it, in order. Tick each step as it is done.
Pongal · Thai Pongal: how it is kept
Keep ready
- a new clay pot, or the family's brass pongal pot
- a fresh turmeric plant with its leaves
- a ginger plant
- sugar cane stalks
- new raw rice from the harvest
- milk
- jaggery and moong dal
- ghee, cardamom, cashews and raisins
- bricks or a new mud stove, and firewood
- rice flour and kaavi for the kolam
- plantain leaves, bananas and a coconut
- betel leaves, areca nut, sandal paste, kumkum and camphor
The steps
0 of 9 done
What is cooked
Sakkarai pongal of new rice, moong dal, jaggery and ghee, and ven pongal with pepper, cumin and ginger, both cooked in the yard; with them a kootu or kuzhambu of the season's country vegetables (avarakkai, pumpkin, sweet potato, seppankizhangu, vazhakkai), vadai, and sugar cane chewed through the day. The Telugu and Kannada country make pongali, ariselu and ellu bella; the north eats khichdi and til laddoo; Maharashtra shares tilgul; Bengal makes pithe and patishapta with the new date palm jaggery; the Punjab eats rau di kheer, rice cooked in sugar cane juice; Assam has pitha and curd with chira; Nepal eats chaku, sesame laddoo, ghee and boiled yams.
The hour
Clock times for Friday, 15 January 2027 at Chennai
The pot is set on the fire so that it boils over soon after sunrise, facing east, while the Sun is rising; the muhurtham the almanac gives is for that moment.
The main rite. The pot goes on the fire so that it boils over just after sunrise on Thai 1, facing east, while the Sun is rising; the muhurtham the almanac gives is for that moment.
| Instant | Time | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Sunrise | 06:35 | the udaya tithi, the tithi running as the sun comes up |
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 |
| Sankramana | previous day 21:10 | the instant the sidereal Sun enters the sign, for this place’s clock |
| Punya kala | 06:35 to 12:59 | the ingress fell in the night, so the 16 ghatis are kept from this sunrise; almanacs narrow it by sign |
For Friday, 15 January 2027 at Chennai. A time marked "previous day" or "next day" is on the clock of that day.
The fast
No fast. Sweet pongal (sakkarai pongal) and ven pongal are the dishes of the day, with sugar cane, turmeric, ginger and fresh vegetables.
What is avoided
The first pongal is not made in a pressure cooker or on the kitchen stove if it can be helped: it belongs in the open, under the Sun. Nothing from the pot is tasted before it is offered, and most Tamil homes keep the day vegetarian.
The name
The same day, in every language that has a word for it
Where the regions differ
The same solar ingress is Makara Sankranti in the Telugu and Kannada country, Makar Sankranti and Uttarayan in the north, Magh Bihu in Assam and Makaravilakku at Sabarimala. It is the one Indian festival fixed by the Sun, so its civil date barely moves: 14 or 15 January.
In other regions
- Tamil Nadu (the dates above)
- Tamil Nadu keeps four days, Bhogi, Thai Pongal, Mattu Pongal and Kaanum Pongal; in the villages the pots are boiled in the common street, and in the cities on the balcony or the terrace, but always in the open and facing east.
- Kerala
- Kerala marks the same ingress as Makara Sankranti, above all at Sabarimala, where the Makaravilakku is looked for at dusk; the Tamil families of Palakkad and the Idukki estates boil the pongal as well.
- Telugu
- The Telugu country keeps it as Makara Sankranti, the Pedda Panduga and the biggest festival of its year: muggulu with gobbemmalu, the haridasu and the gangireddu at the door, kites, and the family home full of returning children.
- Kannada
- Karnataka keeps Makara Sankranti with ellu bella, the mix of sesame, jaggery, groundnut and coconut, exchanged with sugar moulds between neighbours.
- North India
- The north keeps Makar Sankranti with a river bath, at Prayag and Haridwar above all, khichdi given and eaten in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and kites over Gujarat and Rajasthan as Uttarayan.
- Maharashtra
- Maharashtra shares tilgul, sesame and jaggery sweets, with the wish that the other speak sweetly, and married women hold the haldi-kunku gathering; black is worn for the day.
- Bengal
- Bengal keeps Poush Sankranti with pithe made from the new rice and date palm jaggery, and the pilgrimage to the Gangasagar Mela where the Ganga meets the sea.
- Punjab
- The Punjab keeps the day after Lohri as Maghi, with a dip in the gurdwara sarovar, the mela at Sri Muktsar Sahib, and kheer and khichdi.
- Assam
- Assam keeps the harvest as Magh Bihu, or Bhogali Bihu, the feast of plenty, which its calendar reckons from the day after the ingress.
- Sri Lanka
- Sri Lanka keeps Thai Pongal as a national holiday, strongest among the Tamils of the north, the east and the estates, with the pongal boiled at first light in the front yard.
- Nepal
- Nepal keeps Maghe Sankranti with a bath at the river confluences, Devghat above all, and a meal of ghee, chaku, sesame laddoo and boiled yams; for the Tharu people it is Maghi, their new year.
The dates above are the Tamil Nadu 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
இனிய பொங்கல் நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்Iniya Pongal nalvazhthukkal
Mantras
The prayers said with the day. Each opens with its words and meaning.
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.