Ugadi 2028: Date, Rituals & Significance

Shukla Pratipada runs 26 Mar, 10:01 → 27 Mar, 11:43.

1. Oil bath before sunrise. Begin with an oil bath (abhyanga) before sunrise and wear new or clean clothes.
2. Decorate the entrance. Hang a toran of mango leaves over the doorway and draw rangoli or muggu at the entrance.
3. Puja of the household deity. Worship the family deity with flowers, kumkum, akshat, a lamp and incense, praying for a good year.
4. Prepare the pachadi. Mix neem flowers, jaggery, raw mango, tamarind, salt and green chilli or pepper into the pachadi (bevu-bella).
5. Offer and taste. Offer the pachadi to the deity, then every member eats a spoonful before anything else.
6. Panchanga sravanam. In the evening, listen to the reading of the new year's panchang at a temple or community gathering.

• Mango leaves for the toran
• Rangoli or muggu powder
• Sesame oil for the bath
• Neem flowers
• Jaggery
• Raw mango
• Tamarind
• Salt and green chilli or pepper
• Flowers, kumkum and akshat
• Lamp and incense
• The new year's panchang

The Ugadi pachadi combines jaggery (happiness), raw mango (surprise), tamarind (difficulty), neem flower (sorrow), chilli (anger) and salt (fear) — the year taken in all its flavours at once. Homes are cleaned and hung with mango-leaf toran, an oil-bath is taken, and new clothes worn.

In the afternoon a scholar reads the Panchanga Sravanam at the temple or in the home — the year's name in the sixty-year cycle, the rainfall and harvest forecast, and the fortunes of each rashi. Kavi Sammelanam poetry gatherings are held in the Telugu country.

Ugadi is held to mark the day Brahma began creation and set the planets in motion, the start of the current Kali Yuga count and of the sixty-year Jovian cycle; each year carries one of the sixty names (from Prabhava). The pachadi's six tastes are a teaching that a year, like a life, holds all of them.

Source: Shalivahana Shaka era; Kannada and Telugu literary tradition — Yugadi as the year's head

Chaitra Shukla Pratipada is the epoch of the Shalivahana Shaka era (78 CE); Ugadi's Panchanga Sravanam and Kavi Sammelanam are long-standing Deccan customs, and Kannada and Telugu literature refers to Yugadi as the year's head from the medieval period.

• Shalivahana Shaka era; Kannada and Telugu literary tradition — Yugadi as the year's head
• Wikipedia — Ugadi

1. The day begins with an oil bath before sunrise; doorways are hung with mango-leaf torans and rangoli is drawn at the entrance.
2. After the puja the family eats Ugadi pachadi (bevu-bella in Karnataka), whose six tastes stand for joy, sorrow, anger, fear, disgust and surprise, the full range of the coming year.
3. In the evening people gather at temples or community halls for the panchanga sravanam, the reading of the new year's almanac and its forecasts.

• Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Ugadi pachadi, mango-leaf toran, new clothes, the Panchanga Sravanam and Kavi Sammelanam.
• Karnataka. Yugadi — bevu-bella (neem and jaggery) eaten together, holige/obbattu for the meal, and the panchanga reading.

• Ugadi pachadi / bevu-bella — Neem flowers, jaggery, raw mango, tamarind, salt and chilli or pepper.
• Obbattu / bobbatlu / holige — Sweet flatbread filled with lentils and jaggery.
• Pulihora — Tamarind rice, often with raw mango at this season.

Ugadi is kept on the day when Pratipada of Chaitra Shukla paksha prevails at sunrise. That day is Monday, 27 March 2028. Pratipada holds at sunrise only on this day.

at sunrise

Ugadi is Chaitra Shukla Pratipada — the first tithi of the bright fortnight of Chaitra, the start of the luni-solar year in the Deccan (amanta) reckoning. Because it follows the Moon, the Gregorian date moves within a lunar month, from late March to mid-April.

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