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
Kerala calendar, computed for Chennai
- Thursday, 15 April 2027
- Friday, 14 April 2028
- Saturday, 14 April 2029
Where Vishu falls on the solar year, and how far the date moves between occurrences.
- 2027: 15 Apr
- 2028: 14 Apr, the same day of the year
- 2029: 14 Apr, 1 day earlier
The dates, year by year
Kerala calendar, computed for Chennai
What the day is
Medam 1, the day the Sun enters Mesha and the Malayali agricultural year opens. The whole day turns on the Vishukkani, the first sight: the previous night the mother of the house arranges the konna flowers, a mirror, rice, a golden cucumber, coins, a lamp and the image of Krishna in an uruli, and leads each member of the family to it with their eyes closed at dawn. The elders then give the Vishukkaineettam, a coin, to the young.
- Deity
- Krishna, Vishnu, Surya
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
Significance
Vishu means equal: the day was once the spring equinox, when day and night are of one length, and the name stayed after the equinox drifted away from the Sun's entry into Mesha. The old belief is that the year takes after the first thing one sees, so the kani holds everything a household hopes for, grain, gold, fruit, light, new cloth and the face of God, seen together in a mirror. Some tell it as the day Krishna killed Narakasura, others as the morning the Sun could rise straight in the east again once Ravana had fallen. For the farmer it opens the working year, when the first seed goes into the ground, and for the child it is the day of the kaineettam, a coin given as a wish that the year brings plenty.
How it is kept
The puja as a household does it, in order. Tick each step as it is done.
Vishu: how it is kept
Keep ready
- a bell-metal uruli
- unakkalari (raw rice) or paddy
- kani vellari, the golden cucumber
- konna flowers (Indian laburnum)
- a val kannadi or a hand mirror
- a folded kasavu mundu
- a gold ornament and coins
- a halved coconut, ripe mango, jackfruit and plantains
- betel leaves and areca nut
- an image or picture of Krishna
- a grantham or the Ramayanam
- a nilavilakku with oil and wicks
- coins for the kaineettam
- new clothes, the vishukkodi
The steps
0 of 10 done
What is cooked
The Vishu sadya carries the bitter and the sweet at one meal: the veppampoo rasam or pachadi of neem flower beside the mampazha pulissery of ripe mango in curd, with the jackfruit and mango of the season in the chakka erissery and the chakka pradhaman. Many houses make Vishu katta, new rice cooked in coconut milk and set, eaten with jaggery syrup, and others Vishu kanji, rice cooked soft in coconut milk; traditions vary by district. In parts of Malabar some families add a fish or meat dish, where the south keeps the meal vegetarian.
The hour
Clock times for Thursday, 15 April 2027 at Chennai
The kani is seen in the brahma muhurtam, before sunrise, so the day is the first SUNRISE after the Sun enters Mesha: when the sankramana falls after sunrise, Vishu is the next morning even though the Malayalam month Medam has already begun (Medam 1 is the ingress day when the Sun enters before aparahna). In 2026 the Sun entered Mesha at 09:32 on 14 April and Vishu was the 15th.
The main rite. The kani is seen in the brahma muhurtam, before sunrise, on the morning Kerala counts as Medam 1: the ingress day when the Sun enters Mesha before aparahna, otherwise the day after. The kaineettam follows straight after the kani, and the sadya is at midday.
| Instant | Time | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Arunodaya | 04:21 | the 96 minutes before sunrise, the hour of the oil bath |
| Sunrise | 05:57 | the udaya tithi, the tithi running as the sun comes up |
| Aparahna | 13:24 | the afternoon, three fifths of the daylight after sunrise |
Sunrise 05:57, sunset 18:22, 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 Navami from previous day 15:24 until 13:21 | then Shukla Dasami until next day 11:22 |
| Nakshatra | Pushya until 09:34 | then Ashlesha until next day 08:18 |
| Rahu kaal | 13:42 to 15:15 (1 h 33 min) | the eighth of the daylight left alone for a beginning |
| Yamaganda | 05:57 to 07:30 (1 h 33 min) | the eighth ruled by Yama, also avoided |
| Gulika | 09:03 to 10:36 (1 h 33 min) | the eighth of Saturn’s son; what is done in it is said to repeat |
| Abhijit | 11:44 to 12:34 (0 h 50 min) | the midday muhurta, good for most things |
| Moonrise | 13:23 | moonset next day 02:19 |
| Sankramana | previous day 15:28 | the instant the sidereal Sun enters the sign, for this place’s clock |
| Punya kala | 05:57 to 12:21 | the ingress fell in the night, so the 16 ghatis are kept from this sunrise; almanacs narrow it by sign |
For Thursday, 15 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 Vishu sadya follows, with the bitter veppampoo rasam and the sweet mampazha pulissery at the same meal.
What is avoided
Nothing is looked at before the kani: the family walks to it with closed eyes, and no light is switched on, no phone picked up and no harsh word spoken first. The rice, fruit and cucumber of the kani are cooked or shared, never thrown away, and a house in mourning for a death that year keeps no kani and no celebration.
The name
The same day, in every language that has a word for it
Where the regions differ
Kerala's stricter aparahna rule can put Vishu a day after the Tamil Puthandu, which uses sunset. The same sankramana is Poila Boishakh in Bengal, Bohag Bihu in Assam and Vaisakhi in the Punjab.
In other regions
- Tamil Nadu
- Tamil Nadu keeps the same sankranti as Puthandu, Chithirai 1, and in the southern districts a tray of fruit, gold and a mirror is also set out to be seen first on waking; the meal carries the mangai pachadi of mango, neem flower and jaggery.
- Kerala (the dates above)
- Every Malayali house keeps the kani, and Guruvayur and Sabarimala open before dawn for the Vishukkani darshan. North Kerala makes more of the padakkam, the crackers, and in parts of Malabar a fish or meat dish joins the Vishu meal.
- Kannada
- On the Karnataka coast the Tulu families keep the day as Bisu, with a Bisu kani of rice, fruit and vegetables much like the Kerala kani; the rest of Karnataka has already kept its new year at Ugadi.
- North India
- The Hindi-speaking lunar year has already turned at Chaitra, so the day passes as Mesha Sankranti, kept as Satuani in Bihar with sattu and as Baisakhi in Haryana.
- Bengal
- Bengal keeps Poila Boishakh, the first of Boishakh, when the shops open the halkhata, the new account book, and the family eats its new year meal together.
- Punjab
- Punjab keeps it as Vaisakhi, the wheat harvest and the founding of the Khalsa at Anandpur, dated by its own calendar and sometimes a day off the sankranti.
- Assam
- Assam keeps Bohag Bihu, the spring Bihu, begun with the Goru Bihu when the cattle are bathed and followed by the Manuh Bihu, when the young touch the elders' feet and receive the bihuwan cloth.
- Sri Lanka
- Sri Lanka keeps the Sinhala and Tamil New Year at the astrologers' hours for lighting the hearth and boiling the milk; the Tamil families take the maruthu neer herbal bath and the elders give the kai vishesham, a gift of money much like the kaineettam.
- Nepal
- Nepal keeps Baisakh 1 as its New Year, Navavarsha, and the Bisket Jatra of Bhaktapur spans the turn of the year.
The dates above are the Kerala 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
വിഷു ആശംസകൾVishu ashamsakal
Where this day is kept
Nearest first from Chennai, with what is recorded about each.
- Kollam, Kerala
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Mandalam and the Meena Vishu festival are its seasons.
- Ananthapura Lake Temple 576 kmKumbla, Kasaragod, Kerala
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Vishu is its day.
- Kollam, Kerala
The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Meena Vishu and the Mandalam season are its days.
- Pathanamthitta, Kerala
The gazetteer line names the day as the edge of this temple’s open season. Open in Mandala-Makaravilakku (mid-November to mid-January), the first five days of each Malayalam month and Vishu
1 more temple in this gazetteer is recorded for the day. Find temples near you.
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
Vishu'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.