Gudi Padwa

About Gudi Padwa

Significance

Gudi Padwa is the New Year of Maharashtra and of Konkani-speaking communities, kept on the first day of the lunar month Chaitra. A verse quoted in the Dharmashastra digests from the Brahma Purana says that Brahma created the world on the first day of the bright half of Chaitra, at sunrise, and the day therefore opens the lunar year (samvatsara) and the year of the Shalivahana Shaka era used in Maharashtra.

The name joins gudi, the festive pole raised at the house, and padwa, the Marathi form of pratipada. Popular tradition connects the raised gudi with Rama’s victorious return to Ayodhya and with the victory of the legendary king Shalivahana; others see it as a banner of the household’s prosperity at the start of the year. Traditions vary, and families hold these meanings side by side.

How and where it is observed

The festival is kept throughout Maharashtra and by Marathi families elsewhere, and in Goa and the Konkan as Sanvsar Padvo. The same tithi is Ugadi in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and the start of Chaitra Navratri in North India; the Sindhi Cheti Chand usually falls on the next day. In Mumbai, Thane, Pune and other cities, New Year processions (shobha yatras) with music, lezim dancers and women in nauvari saris have become a large public feature.

Rituals

After an early oil bath, a gudi is raised at the door or window: a bamboo staff tied with a bright silk cloth, neem and mango leaves, a garland of flowers and a string of sugar crystals (gathi), crowned by an upturned copper or silver pot. It is worshipped in the morning and taken down before sunset. Families eat a paste of neem leaves with jaggery and spices, draw rangolis, prepare puran poli or shrikhand, and in many homes and temples the new year’s almanac is read aloud (panchang shravan).

How the date is fixed

Gudi Padwa is Chaitra Shukla Pratipada, the first day after the Amavasya that ends Phalguna; as a Shukla-paksha date it has the same month name in the Amanta and Purnimanta calendars. It is kept on the day on which Pratipada prevails at sunrise (udaya tithi), in keeping with the verse that places creation at sunrise. If Pratipada is present at two sunrises the first day is taken, and if it begins after one sunrise and ends before the next, the day that contains it.

Sources

• Nirnaya Sindhu, Pariccheda 2, Chaitra (Samvatsararambha; the Brahma Purana verse on creation at Chaitra Shukla Pratipada)
• Dharma Sindhu, Pariccheda 2, Chaitra (Chaitra Shukla Pratipada: rites of the new year)
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Ugadi (with Gudi Padwa in Maharashtra and Goa)

Customs differ between regions, communities and families; this description is background, not a prescription. The date above is calculated by the rule shown on this page.