Vishu

About Vishu

Significance

Vishu is Kerala’s festival of the solar New Year, celebrated at the first dawn after the Sun enters sidereal Mesha (Aries). Its name comes from vishuva, the equinox: when the calendar took shape the Mesha ingress lay close to the spring equinox, and although the sidereal ingress now falls about three weeks later, around 14 April, the name and the sense of a fresh beginning remain.

The heart of the festival is the Vishukkani, the auspicious sight seen first thing on Vishu morning, which by tradition sets the tone of the year ahead. Kerala custom links the day with Krishna, whose image presides over the kani, and with the farming year, whose first ploughing and sowing were traditionally begun around it. The Malayalam era (Kollavarsham) begins its year with Chingam, but Vishu has long been kept as the astronomical New Year.

How and where it is observed

Vishu is a Kerala public holiday and is kept by Malayalis everywhere, and in the Tulu-speaking coast of Karnataka as Bisu. The same Sankranti brings Puthandu in Tamil Nadu, Vaisakhi in Punjab, Bohag Bihu in Assam, Pana Sankranti in Odisha and Pohela Boishakh in Bengal, though each fixes its day by its own rule. Temples such as Guruvayur and Sabarimala arrange a Vishukkani darshan before dawn.

Rituals

On the eve, the eldest woman of the house arranges the kani in a bell-metal vessel (uruli): raw rice, a golden cucumber (kani vellari), the yellow konna flowers of the Indian laburnum, mango, jackfruit and coconut, betel, a gold ornament and coins, a folded cloth, a metal mirror (valkannadi) and a lit lamp, before an image of Krishna. Before dawn each member is led to it with eyes closed. Elders then give Vishukkaineettam, small gifts of money, to children and dependants; fireworks are lit, and the day ends with the Vishu sadya, with Vishu kanji or Vishu katta in some regions.

How the date is fixed

Vishu is fixed by the Sun, not by a tithi. It is kept at the first sunrise after the Sun’s entry into sidereal Mesha: an ingress between midnight and sunrise gives that morning, an ingress after sunrise the next morning. In the Malayalam solar calendar this is Medam 1, or Medam 2 when the ingress comes after sunrise but before three-fifths of the daytime has passed, Kerala’s month-start rule, as in 2026, when the Government of Kerala holiday was 15 April. The ingress is computed with the ayanamsa of your calculation profile, so Kerala almanacs that reckon it differently can be a day apart when it falls near sunrise.

Sources

• Kerala Tourism (Government of Kerala): Vishu
• Government of Kerala holiday notification for 2026, G.O.(P) No.14/2025/GAD (Vishu, 15 April 2026)
• R. Sewell and S. B. Dikshit, The Indian Calendar (1896): the Malayalam solar month-start rule

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.