Baisakhi 2028: Date, Rituals & Significance

Krishna Chaturthi runs 12 Apr, 08:36 → 13 Apr, 07:29.

As a harvest festival Baisakhi marks the ripening of the rabi wheat; farmers cut the first sheaves and dance the bhangra and gidda at village melas. The Ganga-side and Himalayan fairs — Haridwar, the Pong Dam, Rewalsar — draw pilgrims for the Mesadi bath.

In gurdwaras the day is kept with an akhand path completed at dawn, the changing of the Nishan Sahib flag and its pole cloth, kirtan and langar, and nagar kirtan processions led by the Panj Pyare; the largest gathering is at Talwandi Sabo and Anandpur Sahib.

On Vaisakhi 1699 Guru Gobind Singh called the Sikhs to Anandpur, asked for a head, and one by one five men offered themselves — the Panj Pyare. He initiated them with khande di pahul, then had them initiate him, dissolving the distance between Guru and disciple and founding the Khalsa with its five kakars and its new names, Singh and Kaur.

Source: Sikh Rahit Maryada and the Dasam Granth tradition — the founding of the Khalsa

Baisakhi as a Vaisakha-Sankranti harvest fair long predates 1699; the Khalsa founding is dated by the Sikh sources to Vaisakhi Samvat 1756 (1699 CE). Under the Raj the day also became a rallying date, and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place at the Amritsar Baisakhi gathering of 13 April 1919.

• Sikh Rahit Maryada and the Dasam Granth tradition — the founding of the Khalsa
• Wikipedia — Vaisakhi

1. Sikhs gather at the gurdwara from early morning for kirtan and the conclusion of the Akhand Path, remembering the founding of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur Sahib in 1699.
2. Nagar kirtans (processions) led by the Panj Pyare carry the Guru Granth Sahib through the streets, and many bathe in the sarovar at the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
3. In the villages farmers mark the ripened wheat of the rabi harvest; bhangra and gidda are danced at fairs, and the langar serves everyone who comes.

• Punjab and Haryana. Wheat-harvest melas, bhangra and gidda; the Khalsa founding kept in every gurdwara with nagar kirtan.
• Himachal, Uttarakhand, the Ganga plain. The Mesadi solar new year — a bath at Haridwar, Rewalsar, the Pong Dam and other tirthas.

• Kada prasad — Wheat-flour, ghee and sugar halwa served at the gurdwara.
• Langar — The free community meal of dal, sabzi, roti and kheer, served to all.
• Meethe chawal — Sweet saffron-yellow rice cooked for the harvest day.
• Chole bhature and lassi — The festive meal at the fairs and at home.

Baisakhi (Khalsa Sirjana Divas) falls on Thursday, 13 April 2028. Harvest new year and the founding of the Khalsa in 1699; observed on the Mesha Sankranti (Sun into Aries) date, which is 13 or 14 April.

at sunrise

Baisakhi is fixed to Mesha Sankranti — the Sun's entry into sidereal Aries (Lahiri) — which now falls on 13 or 14 April. Because it tracks the stars rather than the seasons, the date barely moves in the Gregorian calendar.

Fixed to a solar ingress — the Gregorian date barely moves (a day either way as the ingress instant drifts against the civil day).