17 August 2073
- Tithi
- Shukla Purnima · until 11:15 PM
- Nakshatra
- Shravana
- Sunrise – Sunset
- 5:39 AM – 6:41 PM
- Abhijit Muhurta
- 11:44 AM – 12:36 PM
Festival · 2073
Raksha Bandhan 2073
Falls on 17 August 2073 in Lucknow, as computed from the real sky for that city.
The portal of Festivals
Today's three riddles
Turn a card. Answer all three rightly and this portal is sealed in your sky. New riddles every morning.
Wishing you a blessed Raksha Bandhan
May the thread you tie today be a promise kept both ways: to protect, and to be worthy of protection.
सह नाववतु । सह नौ भुनक्तु । सह वीर्यं करवावहै ।
saha nāvavatu । saha nau bhunaktu । saha vīryaṁ karavāvahai ।
Its meaning
May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we act with strength together.
Taittirīya Upaniṣad, peace chant
When, for Lucknow
17 August 2073
Shukla Purnima · until 11:15 PM
Do
Visit or call an elder who lives alone. Ask how they are, ask if anything needs fixing, and then fix it or find someone who can.
Leave aside
A thread tied as a transaction. The rakhi is a promise, not a payment.
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 Raksha Bandhan
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.
In 17,109 days
The sky that day
- The Moon
- Shukla Purnima
- The Sun is in
- Karka
- The Moon is in
- Makara, in Shravana
The Moon is full in Shravana, the month named for the nakshatra the full Moon stands near, and the rains are at their height.
What the day is
A thread tied, and a protection promised. The vow runs in one direction and asks nothing back, which is what separates it from a transaction.
The story
3 stories the day keeps. Turn each card.
1 / 3Shachi ties the threadTurn ↻
When the devas were losing their war, Shachi, Indra's queen, tied a protective thread on his wrist with a prayer, and he went out and won. The first raksha in the tradition is a wife's for her husband: protection was never only a sister's word.
Bhavishya Purana, Uttara Parva.
2 / 3Draupadi and KrishnaTurn ↻
Krishna cut his finger, and Draupadi tore the edge of her sari without a thought and bound it. Years later, in the dice hall, when she was dragged before the court and called to him, he kept her covered with cloth that never ended. A strip of cloth given freely came back as protection no one could break.
The dice hall: Mahabharata, Sabha Parva. The bandaged finger: the living tradition.
3 / 3Lakshmi and BaliTurn ↻
Vishnu had promised to guard King Bali's gates, and so he did not come home. Lakshmi went to Bali, tied a thread on his wrist as a sister, and when he asked what she wished, she asked for her husband. Bali, generous to the end, let him go.
As the living tradition keeps it.
The days around it
3 days kept as one season. Each has its own page.
What is said, and what is so
Often said
Only a sister may tie the thread, and only on a brother.
The root
Shachi tied it on her husband; priests tie the raksha sutra on those they bless; in many homes it is tied on cousins, friends and teachers. The thread carries a promise of protection, and anyone may make one.
Often said
The gift is the price of the thread.
The root
The thread asks nothing back. A gift may come with it, gladly, but the vow is the protection, and it does not depend on what is spent.
How to keep Raksha Bandhan
Free acts, done by you. Kept so far this year: 0 of 3.
Visit or call an elder who lives alone. Ask how they are, ask if anything needs fixing, and then fix it or find someone who can.
Share a meal with someone outside your family who has no one to tie a thread for them today.
Learn the verse that is said as the thread is tied, beginning yena baddho bali raja, and what it means: the bond that held Bali, I tie on you; hold firm.
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
Ties a thread on a sibling, a cousin or a friend, and says aloud one way they will look after them.
The eldest
Tells the story of Shachi and Indra, or of Draupadi's torn sari, and who tied threads in their own childhood home.
Everyone
Each person names someone outside the family they will stand by this year, and how.
How India keeps it
Tamil Nadu and Kerala
Avani Avittam: the day of Upakarma, when the sacred thread is renewed and the study of the Veda begins again.
The Konkan coast and Mumbai
Narali Purnima: fishing communities offer a coconut to the sea as the rough monsoon waters ease and the boats prepare to go out again.
North India
Sisters tie the rakhi on their brothers' wrists, mark their foreheads, feed them a sweet, and brothers promise to stand by them for life.
The day, for Lucknow
The day is chosen by the moment the tradition reads its tithi at, and the times are that day's own, computed for this city. A festival-specific puja window is not printed: those rules differ by tradition and await a scholar's review.
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.