Kati Bihu 2028: Date, History & Significance

At dusk the household lights an earthen lamp before the tulsi tulasi-bheti, offers a little food and lights incense; a taller akaxi-bonti ('sky lamp') is raised on a bamboo pole to light the way for departed ancestors. In the fields a lamp is set among the paddy and a mantra chanted to Lakshmi to guard the crop from pests.

The mood is one of scarcity and hope rather than celebration — the name Kongali means 'poor'. From Kati Bihu the household steps up its evening lamps and its care of the standing crop until the harvest of Magh.

Kati Bihu is the leanest point of the Assamese agricultural year, and its rites are protective rather than festive — the sky-lamp for the ancestors and the field-lamp for the rice goddess. It corresponds to the Kartik lamp customs of the wider Hindu calendar and to the Tula-Sankranti season.

Source: Assamese ethnography — the three-Bihu agricultural cycle and Kati rites

The three-Bihu cycle — Bohag, Kati and Magh — marks the turning points of the wet-rice year in the Brahmaputra valley and is documented across Assamese ethnographic writing; Kati Bihu's akaxi-bonti and field rites are its most distinctive features.

• Assamese ethnography — the three-Bihu agricultural cycle and Kati rites
• Wikipedia — Kati Bihu

1. Kati Bihu comes when the granaries are nearly empty and the paddy is still green in the fields, so it is the quiet, prayerful Bihu, also called Kongali ('the lean one').
2. At dusk earthen lamps (saki) are lit at the foot of the tulsi plant in the courtyard, in the granary (bharal), in the garden and along the paddy fields.
3. An akash banti, a lamp raised on a tall bamboo pole, is lit to guide the ancestors and the crop; farmers whirl bamboo sticks and chant to keep pests away from the young paddy.

• Assam (Brahmaputra valley). The dusk lamp at the tulsi, the tall akaxi-bonti for the ancestors, and a lamp and prayer in the green paddy field.
• Upper Assam. Some communities also light lamps at the granary and the cowshed and keep a partial fast.

• Mah-prasad — Soaked gram and moong with ginger and jaggery or sugar, offered at the tulsi and the namghar.
• A simple meal — Rice and seasonal greens; the lean season keeps the table spare.

Kati Bihu (Kongali Bihu) falls on Tuesday, 17 October 2028. The austere mid-autumn Bihu; Tula Sankranti.

at sunrise

Kati Bihu falls at the start of the Assamese month Kati, fixed to Tula Sankranti — the Sun's entry into sidereal Libra (Lahiri) — near 17–18 October. The sidereal date is nearly fixed 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).