Festival Brahma, Vishnu
Ugadi · Yugadi
The first day of the lunar year for Andhra, Telangana and Karnataka: the samvatsara turns, the Shalivahana Saka year begins, and Brahma is held to have begun the creation on it.
Ugadi · Yugadi 2027 falls on Wednesday, 7 April, computed for Chennai.
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
Telugu calendar, computed for Chennai
- Wednesday, 7 April 2027
- Monday, 27 March 2028
- Saturday, 14 April 2029
Where Ugadi · Yugadi falls on the solar year, and how far the date moves between occurrences.
- 2027: 7 Apr
- 2028: 27 Mar, 10 days earlier
- 2029: 14 Apr, 17 days later
The dates, year by year
Telugu calendar, computed for Chennai
What the day is
The first day of the lunar year for Andhra, Telangana and Karnataka: the samvatsara turns, the Shalivahana Saka year begins, and Brahma is held to have begun the creation on it. The house gets a new mango-leaf toranam, the family bathes with oil before dawn, and the panchanga sravanam, the reading of the year's almanac, is heard at the temple in the afternoon.
- Deity
- Brahma, Vishnu
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
Significance
Ugadi is read as yuga and adi, the opening of an age, and each of the sixty samvatsaras of the Telugu and Kannada cycle has its own name, which the family now writes into its letters, its horoscopes and every sankalpam of the year. The pachadi eaten first thing is a lesson more than a dish: vepa puvvu for the bitter turns, new bellam for the sweet, and the sour, salt, hot and tangy between them, all in one spoon because no year brings one taste alone. At the panchanga sravanam families listen for the year's raja and mantri among the planets, the forecast of rain and harvest, and the aadaya and vyaya, the income and expense figures read out for each rasi, and many buy the new panchangam the same day. It is also held a good day to begin things: a new ledger, a child's first lesson, a purchase put off from the old year.
How it is kept
The puja as a household does it, in order. Tick each step as it is done.
Ugadi · Yugadi: how it is kept
Keep ready
- mango leaves for the toranam
- neem flowers (vepa puvvu) and tender neem leaves
- a raw mango
- new jaggery
- tamarind
- salt and green chilli or pepper
- sesame oil for the oil bath
- sunnipindi or shikakai
- new clothes
- turmeric, kumkum and flowers
- the new year's panchangam
- betel leaves, fruit and dakshina for the panchangam reader
The steps
0 of 9 done
What is cooked
The Ugadi pachadi comes first; Kannada homes eat bevu-bella, neem flowers with jaggery, beside it or in its place. Telugu homes then make bobbatlu, flat breads stuffed with chana dal and jaggery, with pulihora of raw mango or tamarind, mamidikaya pappu and payasam; Kannada homes make obbattu or holige, mavinakayi chitranna (raw mango rice), kosambari and payasa. The meal is vegetarian.
The hour
Clock times for Wednesday, 7 April 2027 at Chennai
Chaitra Shukla Pratipada at sunrise. When the tithi begins and ends between two sunrises, the day it ran on is taken. The panchanga sravanam is in the afternoon.
The main rite. Chaitra Shukla Pratipada at sunrise. The oil bath is taken before dawn, the pachadi is eaten after the morning puja, and the panchanga sravanam is heard in the afternoon.
| Instant | Time | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Sunrise | 06:02 | the udaya tithi, the tithi running as the sun comes up |
| Aparahna | 13:25 | the afternoon, three fifths of the daylight after sunrise |
Sunrise 06:02, sunset 18:21, 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 Prathamai from 05:21 until next day 04:29 | then Shukla Dwitiyai until 2 days later, 03:11 |
| Nakshatra | Revati until 18:26 | then Ashwini until next day 18:00 |
| Rahu kaal | 12:11 to 13:44 (1 h 32 min) | the eighth of the daylight left alone for a beginning |
| Yamaganda | 07:34 to 09:06 (1 h 32 min) | the eighth ruled by Yama, also avoided |
| Gulika | 10:39 to 12:11 (1 h 32 min) | the eighth of Saturn’s son; what is done in it is said to repeat |
| Abhijit | 11:47 to 12:36 (0 h 49 min) | the midday muhurta, not counted on a Wednesday |
| Moonrise | 05:56 | moonset 18:42 |
For Wednesday, 7 April 2027 at Chennai. A time marked "previous day" or "next day" is on the clock of that day.
The fast
No fast. Ugadi pachadi is eaten first: raw mango, neem flower, jaggery, tamarind, salt and chilli together, the six tastes for the six things a year brings. Bobbatlu or holige follows.
What is avoided
Nothing bitter is said and no quarrel is begun, since the first day is held to set the tone of the year. Nothing is eaten before the pachadi, and the day is kept vegetarian.
The name
The same day, in every language that has a word for it
Where the regions differ
The same tithi is Gudi Padwa in Maharashtra, Cheti Chand for the Sindhis, Navreh in Kashmir and the Vikram Samvat new year in the north. Tamil Nadu and Kerala keep a solar new year two weeks later instead.
In other regions
- Telugu (the dates above)
- Andhra and Telangana call it Ugadi and eat the six-taste pachadi with vepa puvvu; the panchanga sravanam at the temples and on television is heard in almost every home, and many towns hold an Ugadi kavi sammelanam, a gathering of poets reading new verse.
- Kannada
- Karnataka calls it Yugadi and shares bevu-bella with the greeting Yugadi habbada shubhashayagalu, and holige or obbattu is the sweet. In the Old Mysore country the next day is Hosa Todaku, when meat-eating families have their first such meal of the year, and some look for the first thin crescent of the year in the western sky that evening.
- North India
- The north counts the Vikram Samvat year from this day and begins Chaitra Navratri with the ghatasthapana, and Kashmiri Pandits keep it as Navreh.
- Maharashtra
- The same tithi is Gudi Padwa, with a gudi, a staff dressed in silk and neem and topped with a copper pot, raised at the door, and neem with jaggery eaten there too.
- Kodagu
- Kodagu keeps Yugadi as the rest of Karnataka does, with bevu bella at the door. It is not a Kodava new year: the Kodavas name three festivals and no new year among them, and their year turns on the crop at Kailpodh, Kaveri Sankramana and Puthari instead.
The dates above are the Telugu 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
ఉగాది శుభాకాంక్షలుUgadi shubhakankshalu
Where this day is kept
Nearest first from Chennai, with what is recorded about each.
- Male Mahadeshwara Temple 313 kmMM Hills, Chamarajanagar, Karnataka
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Maha Sivaratri and the Ugadi fair are its days.
- Nandyal, Andhra Pradesh
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Maha Sivaratri and Ugadi are its days.
Temples of Vishnu 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.
- Chennai, Tamil Nadu · Venkatakrishnan (Parthasarathy) with the arrow scars on his face
- Chennai, Tamil Nadu · The eight forms of Lakshmi in shrines on four floors, facing the sea
- Chennai, Tamil Nadu · Adhivyadhihara Bhaktha Anjaneyar, thirty-two feet tall from a single block of granite
- Chennai, Tamil Nadu · Neervanna Perumal below and Ranganathar on the hill, in four postures
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
Ugadi · Yugadi'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.