Bohag Bihu 2028: Date, History & Significance

Goru Bihu (cattle) is followed by Manuh Bihu (people bathe, wear new gamosa and bihuwan, and touch elders' feet), Kutum Bihu (visiting kin), and days for the household deities and the community. Young men and women dance the Bihu naas to the dhol, pepa (buffalo-horn pipe), gogona and toka, and gift each other the hand-woven gamosa.

The kitchen makes pitha (til, ghila, sunga), laru, and curd with chira; the Husori troupes go house to house with blessings and are given rice and money. The urban 'Bihu function' with stage dance and the Bihu Kunwori contest is the modern public form.

The word 'Bihu' is often derived from a Deori-Chutia or Tibeto-Burman term for a communal harvest worship; the festival blends an agrarian cattle-and-fertility rite with the Mesha-Sankranti new year. Sankardeva-era Vaishnavism gave the Husori its devotional songs, while the Bihu dance keeps an older springtime courtship character.

Source: Assamese folklore scholarship and the Latasil 1952 stage Bihu record

Bihu is attested in Ahom-period Assam and was patronised by the Ahom court from the 17th century; the first public stage Bihu is dated to Latasil field, Guwahati, in 1952, which shaped today's urban festival while the village Xaat Bihu round continues.

• Assamese folklore scholarship and the Latasil 1952 stage Bihu record
• Wikipedia — Bihu

1. The first day, Goru Bihu, is for the cattle: they are taken to the river, bathed with a paste of black gram and turmeric, and lightly struck with dighloti and makhiyati twigs while rhymes wish them health.
2. On Manuh Bihu, the new year's day, people bathe, wear new clothes, touch the feet of elders and give them a hand-woven gamosa.
3. For the following days young people dance the Bihu to dhol and pepa, and husori groups go from house to house singing blessings.

• Assam (Brahmaputra valley). The seven days from Goru Bihu — cattle bathing, new gamosa, Bihu naas to the dhol and pepa, Husori troupes, pitha and laru.
• Assam's tea gardens and hills. Chah Bagichar Bihu among the tea communities, with jhumur dance; parallel spring festivals among the Bodo (Bwisagu) and other communities.

• Pitha — Til pitha, ghila pitha and tekeli pitha made at home through the week.
• Laru — Coconut, sesame and rice laddoos for visitors.
• Jolpan — Chira, muri or akhoi with curd and jaggery, the Bihu morning meal.

Bohag Bihu (Rongali) falls on Thursday, 13 April 2028. Assamese New Year; same solar event as Mesha Sankranti.

at sunrise

Bohag Bihu is fixed to Mesha Sankranti — the Sun's entry into sidereal Aries (Lahiri). Goru Bihu falls on the last day of the old Assamese month (Chot), the eve of the Sankranti, and Manuh Bihu on Bohag 1, so the festival straddles 13–15 April.

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