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
- Wednesday, 14 April 2027
- Friday, 14 April 2028
- Saturday, 14 April 2029
Where Tamil New Year · Puthandu falls on the solar year, and how far the date moves between occurrences.
- 2027: 14 Apr
- 2028: 14 Apr, 1 day later
- 2029: 14 Apr, 1 day earlier
The dates, year by year
Tamil Nadu calendar, computed for Chennai
What the day is
Chithirai 1, the day the Sun enters Mesham and the Tamil solar year turns. The house is cleaned the day before, a kolam is drawn, and the family reads the year's panchangam (the Chithirai vishu palan) at the household shrine. The kanni, an arrangement of fruit, gold, coins, betel and a mirror, is set out so that it is the first thing seen on waking.
- Deity
- Surya, Ganesha
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
Significance
The Tamil year is one of sixty, each with its own name in a cycle that runs from Prabhava to Akshaya, and the new panchangam tells a family which of them has begun, which planets rule it as king and minister, and how the rain and the harvest are expected to go. Chithirai opens the year because the Sun enters Mesham, the sign in which it is exalted, so the year begins with the Sun at its strongest. The whole day rests on the belief that a year follows its beginning: what is first seen, first tasted and first done sets its tone, which is why the kani is laid the night before and why nobody quarrels, borrows or lends on the first morning. Some Tamil scholars have argued for Thai as the start of the year, and for a few years the state followed them, but the temples and most households keep Chithirai.
How it is kept
The puja as a household does it, in order. Tick each step as it is done.
Tamil New Year · Puthandu: how it is kept
Keep ready
- a new panchangam
- a tray for the kani
- a mirror
- gold jewellery, coins and notes
- mango, jackfruit and banana
- betel leaves and areca nut
- raw rice and fresh flowers
- mango leaves for the thoranam
- rice flour for the kolam
- gingelly oil and shikakai
- new clothes
- kuthuvilakku, oil or ghee, and camphor
- raw mango, dried neem flowers and jaggery for the pachadi
The steps
0 of 9 done
What is cooked
Tamil Nadu begins with mangai pachadi of raw mango, veppam poo (neem flower), jaggery, a little tamarind and a green chilli, and follows it with a festive saappadu: vadai, paruppu payasam or pal payasam, a kootu, a poriyal, sambar and neer mor, with veppam poo rasam in many homes. Kerala lays the Vishu sadya, with Vishu katta or Vishu kanji in many homes; Sri Lanka boils kiribath, the milk rice, at the hour the almanac gives and serves it with kavum and kokis; Bengal and Assam eat their own new year feasts of fish and sweets.
The hour
Clock times for Wednesday, 14 April 2027 at Chennai
The morning, after the oil bath and before the first meal; the panchanga sravanam is read at the temple through the day.
The main rite. The kani is seen at first light on the first day of Chithirai, which is the day the Sun enters Mesham if it does so before sunset, and the next day if after. The oil bath, the pooja and the reading of the new panchangam follow in the morning, before the first meal.
This day's rule names no hour of its own: it is fixed by the tithi or the nakshatra running at sunrise. The rule above is the whole of it, and the day's own times are below.
The day itself
| What | When | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Tithi | Shukla Ashtami from previous day 17:29 until 15:24 | then Shukla Navami until next day 13:21 |
| Nakshatra | Punarvasu until 10:53 | then Pushya until next day 09:34 |
| Rahu kaal | 12:09 to 13:42 (1 h 33 min) | the eighth of the daylight left alone for a beginning |
| Yamaganda | 07:30 to 09:03 (1 h 33 min) | the eighth ruled by Yama, also avoided |
| Gulika | 10:36 to 12:09 (1 h 33 min) | the eighth of Saturn’s son; what is done in it is said to repeat |
| Abhijit | 11:45 to 12:34 (0 h 50 min) | the midday muhurta, not counted on a Wednesday |
| Moonrise | 12:23 | moonset next day 01:32 |
| Sankramana | 15:28 | the instant the sidereal Sun enters the sign, for this place’s clock |
| Punya kala | 09:04 to 18:22 | 16 ghatis either side of the sankramana, the daylight part of it; almanacs narrow it by sign |
For Wednesday, 14 April 2027 at Chennai. A time marked "previous day" or "next day" is on the clock of that day.
The fast
No fast is kept. The meal is a feast, and the mangai pachadi of raw mango, neem flower, jaggery and chilli is eaten first, so that the year is tasted sweet, bitter, sour and sharp together.
What is avoided
Do not quarrel, borrow, lend or pay out money on the first morning, since the first act is held to set the pattern of the year. Keep the meal vegetarian, and let nothing broken, empty or unclean be the first thing anyone sees.
The name
The same day, in every language that has a word for it
Where the regions differ
The same sankramana is Vishu in Kerala, Bohag Bihu in Assam, Poila Boishakh in Bengal and Vaisakhi in the Punjab. Kerala keeps it on the ingress day only when the Sun enters before aparahna, so Vishu and Puthandu can fall a day apart.
In other regions
- Tamil Nadu (the dates above)
- Kept across Tamil Nadu as Puthandu or Chithirai Vishu, with the panchanga sravanam in every temple; the kani tray is laid most fully in the southern districts nearest Kerala.
- Kerala
- Kerala keeps the same ingress as Vishu, whose heart is the Vishukkani of golden konna flowers, a cucumber, an uruli of rice and a lit nilavilakku, followed by the kaineettam, money from the elders, and fireworks. Because Kerala begins the month only when the Sun enters before aparahna, Vishu can fall a day after Puthandu.
- Kannada
- In the Tulu country of coastal Karnataka the same day is Bisu, with a kani of the season's produce; the rest of Karnataka keeps its new year at Ugadi instead.
- North India
- In the north the ingress is Mesha Sankranti: Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh eat sattu and raw mango on Satuan, Mithila keeps Jur Sital as its new year with the elders sprinkling water on the heads of the young, and Haryana and Himachal keep Baisakhi.
- Bengal
- Bengal keeps Poila Boishakh, which its rule puts on this day or the next: traders open a new haal khata, the account book, with a Ganesha and Lakshmi puja, and families visit and eat together.
- Punjab
- Punjab keeps Vaisakhi, the wheat harvest and the day the Khalsa was founded, with the Nagar Kirtan from the gurdwaras and bhangra in the fields.
- Assam
- Assam keeps Bohag Bihu, the Rongali Bihu of spring: Goru Bihu for the cattle on the sankranti, then Manuh Bihu with gamosas given to elders and the Bihu dances.
- Sri Lanka
- The Sinhala and Tamil New Year is timed from the instant of the ingress: no work in the nonagathe, then the hearth lit, the milk rice boiled and the first meal eaten at the times the almanac gives. Tamil families of Jaffna and the east bathe in maruthu neer, a herbal water, before the temple.
- Nepal
- Nepal begins the Bikram Sambat year on Baisakh 1, a public holiday, with the Bisket Jatra chariot festival at Bhaktapur.
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 தமிழ்ப் புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்Iniya Tamil puthandu nalvazhthukkal
Where this day is kept
Nearest first from Chennai, with what is recorded about each.
Temples of Ganesha 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.
- Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh · Varasiddhi Vinayaka, self-manifest in the well and said to be growing
- Manakula Vinayagar Temple 137 kmPuducherry · Manakula Vinayagar, who would not leave the shore
- Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu · Swetha Vinayagar, the white Ganesha of sea foam, with Kapardeeswarar
- Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu · Uchi Pillayar (Ganapathi) on the summit, with Thayumanavar below
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
Tamil New Year · Puthandu'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.