Raksha Bandhan 2028: Date, Rituals & Significance

Purnima runs 4 Aug, 11:52 → 5 Aug, 13:40.

1. Check the time. Tie the rakhi outside Bhadra (Vishti karana); this page's muhurat section gives the window for your city.
2. Prepare the thali. The sister prepares a thali with the rakhi, roli, akshat, a diya and sweets.
3. Tilak. The brother sits facing east; the sister applies a tilak of roli and akshat on his forehead.
4. Tie the rakhi. She ties the rakhi on his right wrist, traditionally with the mantra “Yena baddho Bali raja…”, praying for his protection.
5. Aarti and sweets. She performs his aarti and feeds him a sweet.
6. Promise and gift. The brother gives a gift and his promise to protect her.

• Rakhi
• Roli and akshat
• A diya
• Sweets
• A thali
• A gift from the brother

The thread is a raksha: an amulet of protection. What began as a protective cord tied by priests, wives and mothers has, over the last few centuries in the North and West, become chiefly the bond between a sister and a brother: she asks for and he promises safekeeping, and the tie is renewed each year.

The bond is chosen, not only inherited. Rakhis are tied to cousins, to close friends, to soldiers at the border, to a chosen 'brother', and historically across community lines as a public pledge of protection.

The Shravana Purnima is a dense day. In the South, Brahmin men perform Upakarma: the yearly renewal of the sacred thread; on the Konkan coast fishermen offer coconuts to a calmed sea as Narali Purnima; in the east it is Jhulan and Gamha Purnima; in the central belt, Kajari Purnima with the sowing of barley and the singing of Kajari.

The rakhi is usually tied in the Aparahna (early afternoon) and, where Aparahna is unavailable, in the Pradosh. It must not be tied during Bhadra, the Vishti karana, which often occupies the first part of the Purnima; when Bhadra is long, the tying waits until it ends.

The Bhavishya Purana tells that when the gods were losing to the asuras, Indra's wife Sachi, on Brihaspati's counsel, prepared a raksha with mantra and tied it on Indra's wrist on the Shravana Purnima. Protected by it, Indra won back the heavens. In that telling the thread is tied by a wife, and the day is a rite of protection before battle.

A second story is of Bali and Lakshmi. Vishnu, as Vamana, had sent the generous demon-king Bali to rule the netherworld, and then stayed there as his doorkeeper, away from Vaikuntha. Lakshmi went to Bali, tied a rakhi on him and named him her brother; when he offered her a boon she asked for her husband back, and Vishnu returned home.

The best-loved story is of Krishna and Draupadi. When Krishna's finger was cut, Draupadi tore a strip from her sari and bound the wound. Krishna held that debt, and when Duhshasana tried to disrobe her in the Kaurava court, it was Krishna who lengthened her garment without end. Another strand has Yamuna tie a thread on her brother Yama, who in return blessed every brother whose sister ties a rakhi with a long life.

Source: Bhavishya Purana (Indra–Sachi); Bhagavata / Vamana Purana (Bali–Lakshmi); Mahabharata (Krishna–Draupadi)

A protective cord tied on the Shravana Purnima is old: the raksha and the priest's tying of a thread for a patron's wellbeing are described in the dharma literature, and the day was long a general rite of protection rather than a sibling festival.

The sister–brother rakhi as the dominant form is attested strongly from the late-medieval and Rajput period in the North and West. The tradition of Rani Karnavati of Mewar sending a rakhi to the Mughal emperor Humayun for aid against Gujarat is widely told, though its historical basis is debated by scholars.

In 1905 Rabindranath Tagore organised a public rakhi-tying between Hindus and Muslims in Bengal to protest the colonial partition of the province, making the thread a symbol of civic unity. Since Independence, rakhis are also sent to soldiers and, in campaigns, tied across faiths.

• Bhavishya Purana: the raksha-vidhi on Shravana Purnima
• Rajput bardic tradition of Rani Karnavati and Humayun, 16th c. (historicity debated)
• Rabindranath Tagore's Rakhi Bandhan, Bengal, 1905

1. A thali is prepared with roli, rice, a lamp, sweets and the rakhi. The sister applies a tilak and does a short aarti of the brother, ties the rakhi on his right wrist with a prayer for his wellbeing, and feeds him a sweet.
2. The brother gives a gift or money, and pledges to stand by her; elders are touched at the feet, and the family eats together.
3. The tying is timed to the Aparahna and kept outside the Bhadra karana; where Bhadra runs through the afternoon, the family waits for it to end, tying the rakhi in the evening.
4. The thread is worn for some days (often until it falls, or until Janmashtami) and then removed and set in water or under a tree.

• North and West India. The sister–brother rakhi as the main observance; ghevar and kaju katli; rakhis sent by post where families are apart.
• Maharashtra, Konkan, Goa. Narali Purnima: coconuts and rice offered to the sea as it calms, marking the start of the fishing season; the rakhi is tied as well.
• Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Kerala, Karnataka. Avani Avittam / Upakarma: Brahmin men change the yajnopavita with the Kamokarshit japa and begin the year's Vedic study.
• Odisha. Gamha Purnima: cattle are bathed, decorated and worshipped; it is also kept as the birthday of Balabhadra (Balarama).
• Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh. Kajari / Kajali Purnima: women sow barley or wheat in leaf cups nine days earlier and immerse the shoots now, singing Kajari songs of the monsoon.

• Ghevar — A disc-shaped honeycomb sweet soaked in syrup: the Rajasthani and North Indian sweet of the Shravana Purnima.
• Kaju katli, besan and coconut barfi, ladoo — Boxed sweets exchanged with the rakhi.
• Narali bhat, coconut karanji, poda pitha — Coconut rice and sweets on the Konkan coast; baked rice-and-jaggery cake in Odisha.

Raksha Bandhan is kept on the day when Purnima of Shravana Shukla paksha prevails at sunrise. That day is Saturday, 5 August 2028. Purnima holds at sunrise only on this day.

at sunrise

Raksha Bandhan is the Shravana Purnima: the full moon, when the Moon and Sun are opposite in ecliptic longitude (elongation ~180°, sidereal Lahiri) and the Moon lies near the Shravana nakshatra that gives the month its name. The rakhi is tied in the Aparahna, roughly the third fifth of the day, and must fall outside the Bhadra (Vishti karana) that commonly occupies the first half of the Purnima; when Bhadra is long, the tying is deferred to when it ends, sometimes into the Pradosh. The Sun stands in sidereal Karka or early Simha. The Gregorian date drifts about 11 days earlier each year and jumps back ~19 days in an adhika-month year.

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