Kundli.me · Festivals
The Sun enters Capricorn — Uttarayan begins.
When is it?
Thursday
75 days to go
The date follows the tithi in the panchang; when a tithi shortens or lengthens, some places keep the festival a day earlier or later.
Why it is celebrated
Sankranti means a crossing — the moment the Sun leaves one rashi and enters the next. There are twelve of them in a year, one for each sign, and every one is marked in the tradition.
The story and belief
It is also, quietly, the country’s harvest festival.
The story and belief · continued
The rabi crop is standing, the kharif is in, sugarcane and til are being pressed, and the same week is celebrated as Pongal, Lohri, Magh Bihu, Uttarayan and Poush Parbon in different states — different names, different food, the same reason.
The story and belief · continued
That is why Makar Sankranti is one of the very few festivals kept in nearly every part of India at nearly the same time.
Main rituals
There is no fixed liturgy for Makar Sankranti and no fast is prescribed. The sequence below is what most households do, and each step can be kept at whatever scale your day allows.
Often asked
Why does Makar Sankranti not change date like other festivals?
Because it is not a tithi. Diwali, Holi and Janmashtami are lunar dates, and since twelve lunar months fall about eleven days short of a solar year — corrected by inserting an adhik maas every two or three years — they swing across three or four weeks of the English calendar.
Often asked · answer continued
Makar Sankranti is the Sun’s arrival at a fixed point of the sidereal zodiac, and the English calendar is solar too, so the two stay in step. It moves only by a day, and only because of a much slower effect.
Makar Sankranti
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The Sun's transit shifts everyone's chart — read today's rashifal for your sign.
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