Uruka Festival The day before Pongal and Sankranti, when what is worn out is burnt.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Uruka
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
The day before Pongal and Sankranti, when what is worn out is burnt. Old mats, broken furniture and the year's rubbish go on a bonfire before dawn, the house is whitewashed and the kolam redrawn. In the Telugu country the bhogi pallu, a mixture of regi pandu (jujube), coins, flower petals and sugar cane, is poured over small children's heads to keep the evil eye away.
- Deity
- Indra, Agni
- 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 bonfire is lit at dawn, in the last hour before sunrise; the bhogi pallu is in the evening.
The fast
No fast is kept. The kitchen is cleaned out along with the house and the new harvest rice is set aside for the next morning.
Where the regions differ
Tamil Nadu and the Telugu country keep it as Bhogi, the Punjab keeps the same evening as Lohri, and Assam as Uruka, the feast night of Magh Bihu. Assam keeps Uruka as the feast night before Magh Bihu: the meji and the bhelaghar are built in the harvested field, the village cooks and eats together in the bhelaghar and stays the night there, and the meji is burnt at dawn.
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.