Yaoshang Festival The day of colours, the morning after the Holika bonfire.

English

Yaoshang

తెలుగు

హోళి · కామదహనం

ಕನ್ನಡ

ಹೋಳಿ · ಕಾಮದಹನ

हिन्दी

होली · धुलंडी

मराठी

होळी पौर्णिमा · होलिका दहन

মৈতৈলোন্

য়াওশাং

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.

1. Monday, 22 March 2027
2. Saturday, 11 March 2028
3. Wednesday, 28 February 2029

See the whole year on the calendar →

Worked out for Chennai, Lahiri ayanamsa. A date is a function of the place: set yours above and the next three come back for where you are.

The day of colours, the morning after the Holika bonfire. Dry gulal and coloured water are thrown on everyone without distinction of age or rank, which is the point of the day; Braj keeps a fortnight of it, with the lathmar Holi at Barsana and the flower Holi at Vrindavan. The southern reading is Kamadahana: Kama, who shot his arrow at Shiva in meditation, was burnt by the third eye, and the ashes are the fire of the night before.

Deity

Krishna, Radha, Kamadeva, Holika

Kind

Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.

Lamta Purnima at sunrise, and five days from it. The thatched hut is burnt at dusk of the first.

Sunrise 06:12, sunset 18:20, 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.

No fast. Gujiya, thandai, malpua and dahi vada are the food, and in the north bhang is taken by some on the day.

The Hindi belt, Braj, Bengal (as Dol Jatra with the swing), Odisha (Dola Purnima) and Manipur (Yaosang) keep it hardest; the Deccan keeps it as Kamadahana or Kama Dahanam with the fire and little colour, and Tamil Nadu and Kerala barely keep it at all. Maharashtra puts the day on the Phalgun Pournima itself, the night of the bonfire, and waits until Rang Panchami five days later to play the colours; Assam plays the phaku the morning after the Doul. Manipur keeps five days of it and calls it Yaoshang. The children go house to house for the nakatheng, a small collection; the thabal chongba, the moonlight dance, is danced in a ring in every leikai through the nights; and the colours are played in the open on the last day. It is the largest festival of the Manipuri year, and the dance is the part nobody who has seen it forgets.

The dates above are the Manipur 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.

• Banke Bihari Temple, Vrindavan 1,634 km
  Mathura, Uttar Pradesh

  The entry for this day names Vrindavan. The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Braj keeps a fortnight of it, with the lathmar Holi at Barsana and the flower Holi at Vrindavan.

• Shriji Temple (Radha Rani), Barsana 1,648 km
  Mathura, Uttar Pradesh

  The entry for this day names Barsana. The gazetteer line for this temple names the day. Braj keeps a fortnight of it, with the lathmar Holi at Barsana and the flower Holi at Vrindavan.

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. Your family's own temple comes first, and its calendar is the one that decides.

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.