Buddha Purnima is the full Moon day of Vaishakha, and it is the most sacred day of the Buddhist year. The Theravada tradition, followed in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, holds that the Buddha was born, attained enlightenment and passed into final nirvana on the full Moon of the same month, and calls the day Vesak or Wesak. Many Mahayana communities remember the three events on separate days. In India the day is also a public holiday, and in the Hindu calendar it is the Vaishakha Purnima.
Month and tithi
The festival is the full Moon, or Purnima, of Vaishakha, the fifteenth tithi, explained on the Purnima page. Both calendars give this full Moon the same month. The same full Moon is observed as the monthly Purnima vrat by many Hindus, who bathe in a river and give in charity, and some Puranic lists include the Buddha among the avatars of Vishnu, though the lists differ between texts.
What the day remembers
Siddhartha Gautama was born in Lumbini, in present-day Nepal, in the sixth or fifth century before the common era, and the exact dates are debated by historians. According to the tradition he attained enlightenment under the bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya and died at Kushinagar at the age of eighty. These three places, with Sarnath, where he gave his first teaching, are the main pilgrimage sites. Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar draw many visitors on this day.
How it is kept
Devotees visit temples and monasteries, offer flowers, incense and lamps, and take the precepts or listen to teachings. Many dress in white and keep to a vegetarian diet. In Sri Lanka lantern displays called pandals and dansals, where food is given freely, mark the days around Vesak, and in Thailand candlelit processions circle the temple. Some communities release captive birds or fish as an act of compassion, which animal welfare groups advise doing only where the animals are not harmed. At Bodh Gaya, the Mahabodhi temple is decorated, and the bodhi tree is bathed in scented water.
In Hindu homes the day is a time to bathe, give food or water, and remember the teaching of non-violence and compassion associated with the Buddha.
How the day is fixed here
Because this site is for the Hindu calendar, it follows the Hindu rule as Drik Panchang lists it: the day on which Purnima is in force at sunrise; if it is in force at sunrise on two days, the first is taken. The table gives that date and the times at which Purnima begins and ends in each city.
Buddhist national calendars follow their own lunar rules and sometimes name a different day, and several countries fix Vesak on a day in a government list. Sri Lanka, Thailand, Singapore and others may differ by a day from the Hindu Purnima. Please follow the date your temple, monastery or national calendar announces.
Why cities differ
The full Moon is one instant for the whole world, but sunrise is at a different clock time in every city, so the Purnima that begins before sunrise in one city may begin after it in another and move the festival by a day. For a place that is not in the table, use the any-city tool.
A calm note
The day does not ask for ceremony. A quiet hour, an act of kindness and a gift to someone who needs it are in the spirit of the occasion. People of all faiths are welcome in most Buddhist temples on this day, and visitors are asked to dress modestly and remove shoes.