Thai Pongal Festival Thai 1, the day the Sun enters Magaram and turns north, and the harvest thanksgiving of Tamil Nadu.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Thai Pongal
- සිංහල
- තෛපොංගල්
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.
UTC+5:30
The date of a festival depends on the place: 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
Looking for the calendar this day belongs to
This day does not fall again in the next three years at this place. A few days are tied to the solar month rather than to the civil year, so a year can hold two of them or none.
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.
The hour
The rule in words
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 fast
No fast. Sweet pongal (sakkarai pongal) and ven pongal are the dishes of the day, with sugar cane, turmeric, ginger and fresh vegetables.
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. Sri Lanka keeps Thai Pongal as a public holiday across the island, strongest among the Tamils of the north and the east and on the up-country estates, with the pot boiled over at first light and the kolam drawn at the door.
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.