What a Sankranti is
Sankranti means the passing of the Sun from one zodiac sign to the next. The Sun appears to cross the twelve signs of the Hindu zodiac in a year, spending about a month in each, so there are twelve Sankrantis, each named for the sign the Sun enters: Makara Sankranti in January, Kumbha in February, and so on round to Dhanu in December. The best known is Makar Sankranti, which is also kept as Pongal and Uttarayan in different regions, with Lohri the evening before. The Sankranti into Mesha is the solar new year of Punjab (Baisakhi), Kerala (Vishu), Odisha (Pana Sankranti) and some other places.
Because a Sankranti is a moment, not a day, the first question is when exactly the Sun crosses the boundary. The second is which civil day the festival belongs to, and that depends on where you live, since the same instant falls on different dates in Delhi, London and Sydney.
How the tool works
You choose a town or city and a year. The tool reads the Sun’s position from the Swiss Ephemeris tables on this site, in the sidereal zodiac with the Lahiri ayanamsa, and finds the instant it reaches the start of each sign. The time is then converted to your place’s own clock, with daylight saving taken into account. Everything is worked out in your browser.
One small correction is applied. The Lahiri ayanamsa used by the panchang makers runs about fifteen arcseconds ahead of the raw Swiss Ephemeris value, which moves every ingress about six minutes later. This is the same correction the Makar Sankranti and Pongal dates on this site use, and it is the reason the moments here can differ from a plain ephemeris by a few minutes.
The punya kaal
The punya kaal is the auspicious stretch of the day set aside for a holy bath, charity and prayers to Surya. The tool works it out for every Sankranti in the way this site works it out for Makar Sankranti:
- If the Sun enters the new sign before local sunset, that day is the day of observance. If it enters after sunset, the observance moves to the next day.
- The punya kaal runs from the moment of ingress, or from sunrise if the ingress came earlier or the day moved on, until sunset.
- The maha punya kaal is the first sixth of the daytime, counted from the start of the punya kaal. Many people give it the most weight.
Where traditions differ
The rule above is the one most almanacs use for Makar Sankranti. Classical texts group the twelve Sankrantis into types and give each type its own punya kaal. For Karka Sankranti, which begins the southward course of the Sun, many almanacs place the punya kaal before the ingress rather than after it. Some give a window on both sides of the ingress for the Mesha and Tula Sankrantis. The tool shows one method for all twelve so that the table is consistent, and says so under the result. If your family follows a particular almanac, a local priest or your temple’s calendar has the last word for the observance.
Regional calendars also decide some days in their own way. Baisakhi, Vishu and Puthandu all follow Mesha Sankranti, but each region has its own rule for the day, so they do not always fall together. When an ingress happens close to midnight or before sunrise at your place, other almanacs may list the Sankranti one day earlier than the date of the ingress shown here.
Reading the table
The first column names the Sankranti and what it is known for. The second gives the date and the clock time the Sun changes sign at your place. The third gives the day of observance by the rule above, which is the day to look at for a festival. The last two columns give the punya kaal and the maha punya kaal with their lengths. If you live far north or south and the Sun does not rise or set on one of these days, the tool says so and shows only the moment.
The table is for planning, not a prediction. For the rest of the day, such as the tithi and Rahu kaal, open the panchang for any place or the timings for any city. The pages on Makar Sankranti, Pongal, Lohri, Baisakhi and Vishu explain the customs, and the Hindu calendar section describes the months. To see where the Sun and the planets stand today, use the transits page.
Frequently asked questions
↳ How many Sankrantis are there in a year?
Twelve, one each time the Sun enters a new sign of the Hindu zodiac. They fall about a month apart, between the 13th and 17th of each Gregorian month, and the date can move by a day from year to year.
↳ Why does Makar Sankranti sometimes fall on 15 January?
If the Sun enters Makara after sunset on the 14th, most almanacs move the observance to the next day. The ingress also drifts a little later in the calendar over the decades, so 15 January is becoming more common.
↳ What is the difference between punya kaal and maha punya kaal?
The punya kaal is the whole auspicious stretch, from the ingress or sunrise to sunset. The maha punya kaal is the first sixth of the daytime within it, the part many people treat as the best time for a bath and charity.
↳ Why do the times differ between cities?
The Sun enters the sign at one instant everywhere, but each city has its own clock and its own sunrise and sunset. The same instant can be the evening of one date in India and the morning of the same date in New York, and the observance day follows local sunset.
↳ Is this the same as the sayana Sankranti?
No. This tool uses the sidereal zodiac with the Lahiri ayanamsa, the system followed by Hindu panchangs. The sayana (tropical) ingresses are tied to the equinoxes and solstices and fall about three and a half weeks earlier.