Makar Sankranti

The day

• The sun enters Makara (Capricorn) and Uttarayana, its northern course, begins; the digests rank this transit among the holiest of the year.
• The hours around the transit are the punya kala, the holy time for bath, gifts and worship.

What to do today

• Bathe and give in the punya kala this page shows — sesame above all.
• Worship the Sun and Shiva, and eat something made with sesame.

When

• In the punya kala this page shows; the stretch nearest the transit is the most fruitful.

The bath

• The Dharmasindhu makes the sankranti bath a duty for everyone, warning that one who skips it meets sickness and want for seven births.
• Bathe at a river or tirtha if you can; at home, bathe with sesame in the water.

Sesame, five ways

• At the start of Uttarayana the digest has sesame used for the bath, to rub the body, as a gift, in the fire and as food.
• White sesame is offered with water to the gods, and black sesame to the forebears.

What to give

• Both digests name firewood and fire as the gift proper to Makara.
• For Uttarayana the Dharmasindhu adds a cow shaped of sesame, sesame in a copper vessel with a little gold, and cloth.

The Sun

• The Apastamba verse in the Nirnayasindhu has the Sun worshipped after the bath at an ayana transit.
• The Dharmasindhu says bathing the Sun's image with milk on this day leads to the Sun's world.
• The Vrataraja, citing the Bhavishya through Hemadri, has the Sun's image bathed in ghee at Uttarayana and a cow of ghee given.

Shiva

• Lamps of sesame oil in a Shiva temple, and worship with sesame and rice, are praised on this day.
• The Dharmasindhu gives a vow for the day: fast the day before, bathe with sesame, bathe Shiva in cow's ghee, offer sesame lamps and a heap of ghee (ghrita-kambala), offer sesame in the fire, and break the fast with panchagavya and sesame.

The fast

• The digests describe an optional fast of three days, or of one day and night, before an ayana transit; it is a vow for release from wrongdoing, not a duty.
• Both digests say a householder with children does not keep it.

Shraddha

• A shraddha without pindas is made at every sankranti; at the two ayana transits the Dharmasindhu makes it a duty for those entitled.

The meal

• Sesame is to be eaten today, the Dharmasindhu says.
• In the north, khichdi of new rice and lentils is cooked, offered and given; in the west and south, sweets of sesame and jaggery are shared (practice)

The span

• For Makara the Dharmasindhu counts forty ghatis after the transit — a ghati is about twenty-four minutes; Madhava's school counts twenty.
• Only daylight counts: the window is clipped to the day, and nothing is served at night.

A transit late in the day

• If two ghatis or less of daylight remain when the sun enters Makara, the Dharmasindhu takes the time just before the transit, so that bath and gifts are made by day.
• Note: This page does not yet apply that rule; it shows the span after the transit.

A transit at night

• If the transit falls after sunset, the next day is holy; its first half is holier, and the first five ghatis after sunrise are the holiest.

Maha punya kala

• The five ghatis nearest the transit, inside the punya kala, are called the most holy (maha punya kala).
• Note: The main window on this page is the punya kala; where a separate maha punya kala is shown, it is these five ghatis.

The rule this page follows

• The Dharmasindhu: a transit by day is kept that day; a transit after sunset, at any hour of the night, is kept the next day.

Where the schools differ

• Madhava, followed in the south, keeps a night transit on the next day, as the Dharmasindhu does.
• Baudhayana, followed in Gujarat and the north, the Nirnayasindhu reports, holds both days holy when the transit falls at dusk or by midnight.
• Hemadri and others split the night at midnight: before it, the earlier day; after it, the later day.
• Note: A rule that puts a transit in the first three ghatis after sunset on the earlier day is attributed to jyotisha; the Dharmasindhu says it is not found in all dharmashastra works, and this page does not use it.

Why dates can differ

• Calendars following a different school can print a different day; keep your family's custom.

The turning

• The Dharmasindhu begins the northern course, Uttarayana, at the sun's entry into Makara; it runs for six signs, until the entry into Karka.
• Of the four classes of sankranti, the digest ranks the two ayana transits highest.

Bhishma

• In the Mahabharata, Bhishma, lying on his bed of arrows, waits for the sun to turn north before leaving his body; Yudhishthira sets out for Kurukshetra when he sees that Uttarayana has begun.
• Bhishma tells him he has lain there fifty-eight nights, and that the month of Magha has come.

Auspicious works

• The Nirnayasindhu cites the rule that temples, gardens and wells are consecrated while the sun travels north.

Khichdi — Uttar Pradesh and Bihar

• The day is called Khichdi: after a bath in the Ganga, khichdi of new rice and urad is cooked, offered and given (practice)

Uttarayan — Gujarat

• Rooftops fill with kites through the day (practice)

Sankranthi — Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana

• In Karnataka, ellu-bella — sesame, jaggery, coconut and groundnut — is shared among neighbours, and cattle are decorated (practice)
• In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana the festival runs three days, opening with Bhogi fires, with rangoli at every door (practice)

Maharashtra

• Til-gul is exchanged with the words "take til-gul, speak sweetly" (practice)

Elsewhere in this app

• Tamil Nadu keeps the day as Pongal, and Assam as Magh Bihu — see those pages.

Shastra

• Dharmasindhu, on sankrantis and the month of Pausha: the punya kala, the night rule, the fast, the gifts and the sesame rites.
• Nirnayasindhu, on sankrantis and the month of Magha: the schools on a night transit, the gifts and the fast.
• Vrataraja: the Sun's ghee bath; Mahabharata, Anushasana Parvan: Bhishma and Uttarayana.

Parampara

• Khichdi, kites, til-gul, ellu-bella and the Bhogi fires are living custom; these texts do not prescribe them.
• Note: The Vrataraja describes krisara of rice and lentils fed to Brahmins through the month the sun is in Dhanu; no text in hand ties it to the Khichdi of this day.

How this page decides

• The date is the day the engine marks for the sun's entry into Makara at your location, by the Dharmasindhu's rule; the punya kala is worked out from the transit.