Festival · 2086
Gudi Padwa · Ugadi 2086
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Wishing you a blessed Gudi Padwa · Ugadi
May the new year begin light: enjoying what is given, holding nothing too tightly.
ईशा वास्यमिदं सर्वं यत्किं च जगत्यां जगत् । तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जीथा मा गृधः कस्य स्विद्धनम् ॥
īśā vāsyamidaṁ sarvaṁ yatkiṁ ca jagatyāṁ jagat tena tyaktena bhuñjīthā mā gṛdhaḥ kasya sviddhanam
Its meaning
Whatever moves in this moving world, all this is to be clothed by the Lord. Through that renunciation, enjoy. Do not covet. Whose, after all, is wealth?
Īśa Upaniṣad 1
Do
Sit quietly at sunrise for a few minutes, then begin one thing you have been deferring, however small.
Leave aside
Beginning the year with last year's grudges.
Send this as your wish
Add your name and send the link. It opens as your wish, with the timing for their own city, the verse, and how to keep the day.
Wishing you a blessed Gudi Padwa · Ugadi
Keep the festival year in your calendar
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Never miss a festival
A gentle reminder three days before each festival and on its morning, with its timing for your city.
What the day is
The lunar new year. The year turns at the first tithi after the spring equinox — the calendar begins where the earth begins again, which is the whole logic of the Sanatan year.
The story
3 stories the day keeps. Turn each card.
1 / 3Brahma begins the worldTurn ↻
The tradition holds that on the first day of the bright half of Chaitra, Brahma began the work of creation, and time itself began to be counted. So the year does not begin with a celebration of what is finished, but with the first morning of something being made.
As the tradition keeps it; the Brahma Purana is the text most often cited.
2 / 3The gudi raised at the doorTurn ↻
A bamboo staff is dressed in a bright cloth, crowned with an upturned pot, and tied with neem leaves, mango leaves, flowers and a garland of sugar crystals. It is raised high at the door or window, where the whole street can see it: a flag of a household that has decided to begin again.
As the living tradition of Maharashtra keeps it.
3 / 3Bitter and sweet togetherTurn ↻
The first food of the year is not only sweet. In Maharashtra it is tender neem with jaggery; in the Telugu and Kannada lands it is ugadi pachadi, made of six tastes: sweet, bitter, sour, salty, pungent and astringent. The year will hold all of them, and the first meal says so plainly, so that none of them comes as a betrayal.
As the living tradition keeps it.
The days around it
4 days kept as one season. Each has its own page.
- Gudi Padwa · Ugadi
The year begins: the gudi raised, bitter and sweet together.
You are here - Chaitra Navaratri
Nine spring nights of the Devi, one discipline kept.
14 April 2086 - Rama Navami
Rama born at noon; the promise kept at its cost.
21 April 2086 - Hanuman Jayanti
The first full Moon; strength remembered and given away.
28 April 2086
What is said, and what is so
Often said
If the gudi is raised at the wrong minute, the year goes badly.
The root
The day itself is counted among the few that need no muhurta to be chosen. The gudi is raised in the morning, with care and in good spirit; what shapes the year is what the household does with it, not the minute of a flag.
Often said
The year's reading at the temple tells you what fate has fixed for you.
The root
The panchanga shravanam, the public reading of the new year's almanac, tells of seasons, rains and festivals so that a village can plan its year. It was never a verdict on a person. It is a calendar read aloud, so that everyone begins the year knowing its rhythm.
How to keep Gudi Padwa · Ugadi
Free acts, done by you. Kept so far this year: 0 of 3.
Sit quietly at sunrise for a few minutes, then begin one thing you have been deferring, however small.
Ask the eldest in your family how the new year was welcomed in their childhood home, and what was eaten first.
Share the first sweet of the year with someone outside your own house: a neighbour, a watchman, someone who works for you.
Each act is free and done by you. Keeping one writes it to your karma ledger with the day's panchang. Nothing here is ever bought, and no act is a remedy.
The family's part
The youngest
Helps tie the neem, the mango leaves and the sugar garland on the gudi, and tastes the bitter leaf before the sweet.
The eldest
Tells how the year was welcomed when they were young: what was cooked, who came, what was hoped for.
Everyone
Each person names one thing they will begin this year and one bitter thing they are ready to accept.
How India keeps it
Maharashtra and Goa
Gudi Padwa: the gudi at the door, rangoli, neem with jaggery, and processions in the streets in the morning.
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka
Ugadi: an oil bath, mango leaves at the door, ugadi pachadi of six tastes, and the panchanga shravanam in the evening.
Kashmiri Pandit households
Navreh: a thali of rice, a new almanac, flowers, a mirror and other auspicious things is set out the night before and seen first on waking.
Sindhi households
Cheti Chand, kept at the new Moon's return in Chaitra, honours Jhulelal with offerings at the water.
Across North India
The day is the start of the Vikram year in many calendars, and Chaitra Navaratri begins the same morning.
Gudi Padwa · Ugadi was not found in 2086 for this city. The calendar shows the whole year.
For another city
The stories, their sources and the regional customs on this page await a scholar's review. The sky and the dates are computed for your city.