Guru Ravidas Jayanti 2028: Date, History & Significance

The day is kept with an akhand or sadharan path of the Amritbani Guru Ravidas, kirtan of his shabads, a Nagar Kirtan carrying his portrait and the Nishan, discourses on his life and teaching, and langar. The largest gathering is at Sri Guru Ravidass Janam Asthan Mandir, Seer Goverdhanpur, Varanasi, drawing lakhs from Punjab and abroad.

Ravidas's vision of 'Begampura' — a city without sorrow, fear, tax or rank, where all walk as equals — is recited and celebrated as the day's ideal. For the Ravidassia panth, which formally separated its identity in 2010, the Jayanti and the Amritbani are its own scripture and founder's day.

Ravidas was born to a leather-working family at Varanasi and worked as a cobbler all his life, refusing to abandon his trade or hide it. His devotion drew disciples across caste — including, by tradition, the Rajput queen Mirabai. His forty-one shabads and one shloka in the Guru Granth Sahib, and the wider Amritbani, teach that the divine is reached by love and a pure heart, not by birth, ritual or the body's supposed impurity.

Source: Sikh historical sources and the janamsakhi tradition

Ravidas lived roughly 1450–1520; his verses were included in the Adi Granth by Guru Arjan in 1604. The Jayanti on Magha Purnima and the Seer Goverdhanpur temple have grown into a major observance, especially among the Ravidassia and Dalit communities of Punjab, UP and the diaspora, since the twentieth century.

• SGPC and Sikh historical scholarship
• Nanakshahi and Bikrami calendar reckonings

1. Followers of the fifteenth-century saint-poet gather at Seer Govardhanpur in Varanasi, his birthplace, and at Ravidassia deras and gurdwaras.
2. His hymns, forty of which are in the Guru Granth Sahib, are sung, and processions carry his portrait with the Amritbani.
3. The day celebrates his teaching of a society without caste, the Begampura he sang of.

• Varanasi (Seer Goverdhanpur). The birthplace temple; a lakhs-strong gathering with Nagar Kirtan, path and langar.
• Punjab, UP, diaspora (UK, Europe, North America). Ravidassia dera and gurdwara programmes, processions, and the recitation of Begampura.

• Langar — Served at Seer Govardhanpur and the deras to all pilgrims.

Guru Ravidas Jayanti is kept on the day when Purnima of Magha Shukla paksha prevails at sunrise. That day is Thursday, 10 February 2028. Purnima holds at sunrise only on this day.

at sunrise

Guru Ravidas Jayanti follows the Magha Purnima. Most Gurpurabs use the lunar Bikrami calendar, so the Gregorian date shifts each year; the Nanakshahi calendar (2003, revised) assigns several of them fixed solar dates, and both reckonings are in use in different quarters of the Panth.

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