Akshaya Tritiya 2028: Date, Rituals & Significance

Shukla Tritiya runs 27 Apr, 01:48 → 28 Apr, 01:28.

1. Morning bath. Bathe early, in the Ganga or a river if you can, and wear clean clothes.
2. Vishnu and Lakshmi puja. Worship Vishnu and Lakshmi with sandal paste, tulsi, yellow flowers, akshat and a lamp; many also worship Parashurama, whose jayanti falls today, and Kubera.
3. Naivedya. Offer barley or sattu, soaked chana, cucumber, seasonal fruit and sweets.
4. Summer daan. Give a water pot filled with water, a fan, an umbrella, sattu, jaggery, grain or clothes to someone in need; gifts given today are held never to diminish.
5. Begin something. The whole day is treated as auspicious without a separate muhurat, so households buy gold, begin a venture, or start work they have been postponing.

• Image of Vishnu and Lakshmi
• Sandal paste and tulsi
• Yellow flowers and akshat
• Ghee lamp and incense
• Barley or sattu
• Soaked chana, cucumber and seasonal fruit
• An earthen water pot for daan
• A fan or umbrella, jaggery and grain for daan

'Akshaya' means imperishable. The merit of charity, japa, homa or any auspicious start made on this tithi is believed not to decay, so it is a favoured day for weddings, griha-pravesh, new ventures, sowing and the purchase of gold or property.

It is one of the three and a half unconditional muhurats (with Gudi Padwa, Vijayadashami and the first half of Kartik Shukla Pratipada) that are auspicious for any beginning without a separate muhurat calculation.

The Chandan Yatra begins at Puri on this day; the doors of Kedarnath and Badrinath open around now; and at Vrindavan the feet of Banke Bihari are shown (the Charan Darshan), on the one day of the year they are.

Jains keep it as the day Rishabhadeva (Adinatha) ended his year-long fast with sugarcane juice from the hands of his grandson Shreyans: the varshi-tap parana.

Parashurama, the sixth avatar of Vishnu, was born on this tithi, which is why the day is also Parashuram Jayanti. On the same day Vyasa is said to have begun dictating the Mahabharata to Ganesha.

In their exile the Pandavas received the Akshaya Patra from Surya: a vessel that never ran empty until Draupadi had eaten each day. Sudama, visiting Krishna with a handful of beaten rice, returned to find his hut turned to a palace; Kubera, after penance, was made the treasurer of the gods and the lord of wealth by Shiva on this day.

In another telling Adi Shankara, begging at a poor woman's door, was given her last amalaka fruit; moved, he recited the Kanakadhara Stotra to Lakshmi, and her house was showered with golden amalakas. The thread through the stories is abundance that does not run out.

Source: Puranic and folk tradition; Mahabharata (the Akshaya Patra); Bhavishya and Vishnu Puranas

The tritiya as a great daan-tithi is old in the dharmashastra; the 'akshaya' (non-decaying) merit and the sade-teen muhurat framing are set out in the medieval nibandha literature.

The custom of buying gold on the day grows from the older association with Lakshmi and undiminishing wealth, but its present scale is largely a twentieth-century development driven by the jewellery trade.

The Jain varshi-tap parana, kept at Hastinapur and Palitana, is ancient within that tradition; in Odisha the day (Akhi Muthi Anukula) is the ceremonial start of the ploughing and paddy-sowing season.

• Nibandha literature on the akshaya-tritiya vrata and the sade-teen muhurats
• Mahabharata, Vana Parva: the Akshaya Patra
• Jain tradition of the varshi-tap and its parana on this day

1. A bath and a Vishnu–Lakshmi puja; the Vishnu Sahasranama is read, and pitru-tarpana is offered.
2. Daan is given with the summer in mind (water pots, hand-fans, sattu, curd, sugarcane, melons and cooling fruit, and to the able, gold or money) to Brahmins and the needy.
3. Gold, silver or property is bought; a new venture, course of study, construction or marriage is begun; in agrarian regions the first furrow is ploughed.
4. In the Jain community the varshi-tap is broken with sugarcane juice; at Puri the Chandan Yatra of the deities begins.

• Odisha. The Chandan Yatra begins at Puri, and Akhi Muthi Anukula, the ceremonial first sowing of paddy, is done in the fields.
• North and West India. Gold-buying, griha-pravesh and weddings on the unconditional muhurat; Parashuram Jayanti at Parashurama temples.
• Braj (Vrindavan). The Charan Darshan of Banke Bihari, the only day the deity's feet are shown, draws very large crowds.
• Uttarakhand. The kapat (doors) of Kedarnath and Badrinath open for the pilgrimage season around this tithi.
• West Bengal. Halkhata: traders open fresh account books with a Lakshmi–Ganesha puja, a smaller echo of the Diwali Chopda Pujan.

• Sattu — Roasted-gram flour with water and jaggery or salt: the summer food it is traditional to give and eat on the day in Bihar and eastern UP.
• Aam-pana, watermelon and summer fruit — Cooling foods offered and shared as the hot season opens.
• The daan of curd, sugarcane and cool water — Given with a earthen pot and a fan: the seasonal form of the day's 'undiminishing merit'.

Akshaya Tritiya is kept on the day when Tritiya of Vaishakha Shukla paksha prevails at sunrise. That day is Thursday, 27 April 2028. Tritiya holds at sunrise only on this day.

at sunrise

Akshaya Tritiya is the Shukla Tritiya of Vaishakha: the third tithi of the waxing fortnight, when the Moon is a thin waxing crescent 24°–36° ahead of the Sun (sidereal Lahiri). It falls near the peak of the Sun's power, with the Sun in sidereal Mesha at its exaltation and the North Indian summer at its hottest, which the tradition reads as a day of undiminishing light. Unlike most festivals it requires only that the Tritiya be current for part of the day; there is no muhurat window to hit. The Gregorian date drifts about 11 days earlier each year and jumps back ~19 days in an adhika-month year.

A lunar date: Tritiya of the bright half of Vaishakha drifts about 11 days earlier each solar year, then jumps back ~19 days when a leap (Adhika) month is inserted.