Makar Sankranti 2027: Date, Significance & Puja Vidhi

Last updated: September 2026 · By Acharya Alok Pandit, Divine Hindu, Jayanagar 3rd Block East, Bengaluru 560011 · ~19 min read

Makar Sankranti is the day the Sun turns north — the one great festival of the Hindu year not counted by the moon, which is why it sits at the same corner of January while Holi and Diwali wander across weeks. That reliability is exactly why most households have stopped checking it. Everyone simply knows it is the fourteenth. Most years everyone is right. In 2027 everyone is wrong, and the reason is not an obscure technicality but a rule any panchang states plainly once you look.

Makar Sankranti 2027 date: Friday, 15 January

Makar Sankranti 2027 is on Friday, 15 January 2027. This is the date given by Drik Panchang computed for New Delhi, by Prokerala computed for New Delhi in IST, and by AstroSage and Hindu Blog — the publishers that actually calculate a Sankranti moment and apply the classical rule to it. Every one of them lands on the fifteenth.

Makar Sankranti is not fixed by a tithi, nakshatra or paksha but by a single astronomical event: the moment the Sun crosses from sidereal Dhanu into sidereal Makara. In 2027 that crossing happens late on the evening of Thursday 14 January, after sunset in India — Delhi's sunset that day is around 5:45 pm, and the transit is hours later.

Once the Sankranti moment falls after sunset, the classical rule takes over. Drik Panchang states it directly: "If Makar Sankranti happens after Sunset then all Punya Kaal activities are postponed till next day Sunrise. Hence all Punya Kaal activities should be done in day time." Prokerala gives the same rule with its scriptural source, the Muhurta Chintamani: the punya kaal runs sixteen ghatis — about six hours and twenty-four minutes — from the Sankranti moment, or from the next sunrise where the Sankranti moment falls after sunset.

The logic is devotional, not merely arithmetical. Punya kaal is a window for snan, arghya and daan, and those are daylight acts. A transit that happens in the dark cannot be honoured in the dark, so tradition carries the observance to the first available sunrise — which in 2027 is Friday the fifteenth.

Why some calendars will still print 14 January

Expect disagreement, and expect it in print. Some almanacs, several news sites and quite possibly your own office holiday list will carry Thursday 14 January 2027. The pattern is easy to spot: sources that say the 14th almost never publish a Sankranti moment and almost never publish a punya kaal. They are dating the festival by the day the transit occurs, or by habit. The sources that compute a moment and apply the after-sunset rule are unanimous on the 15th. If your workplace observes Sankranti on the 14th, that is a holiday-list decision and a panchang will not change it — keep the office holiday where your employer fixed it, and keep the snan, arghya and daan on Friday 15 January.

The Sankranti moment, and the punya kaal

We are not printing an exact time for the transit. Four reputable publishers give four different times, spread across roughly a quarter of an hour, with no two agreeing. This is normal rather than careless: the sidereal zodiac has no observable boundary marker, and where Makara begins depends on the ayanamsa, the offset between the tropical and sidereal frames, which traditions set slightly differently. A few arc-minutes of difference becomes several minutes in the crossing time. What all four agree on — and this is what decides the date — is that the crossing happens after sunset on Thursday 14 January.

One timing is safe to publish, because two sources give it to the minute. Punya kaal on Friday 15 January 2027 begins at 07:15 AM for New Delhi — Drik Panchang gives 07:15 AM, AstroSage 07:15:13. Note "for New Delhi" carefully: punya kaal opens at sunrise, and sunrise is local. Kolkata is earlier; Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai later. Take your own city's sunrise from a panchang computed for your location.

The end is a genuine methodological fork, so we publish both readings. Drik Panchang gives 05:46 PM for New Delhi — a forty-ghati reckoning running from sunrise to sunset. Prokerala and AstroSage both give 12:30 PM for New Delhi, the sixteen-ghati window of the Muhurta Chintamani measured from sunrise. Those two agree with each other and differ from Drik by over five hours. Neither is a mistake; both are defensible applications of the same tradition. Complete your snan, arghya, puja and daan in the morning and you are inside every reading. Maha Punya Kaal is quoted with three different end times by three publishers with no two agreeing, so we print none.

Why Sankranti barely moves when Holi and Diwali swing

Almost every Hindu festival is lunar. Holi is set by Phalguna Purnima, Diwali by Kartika Amavasya, Janmashtami by a tithi in Bhadrapada. Twelve lunar months fall about eleven days short of a solar year, so lunar festivals drift backwards until an intercalary month — the adhik maas — pushes them forward again. That is why Holi can land in early March one year and late March another, and why a festival calendar is useful. There is no adhik maas in 2027; the last was Adhika Jyeshtha in May–June 2026.

Sankranti belongs to the other reckoning. Alongside the lunar months runs a solar year divided into twelve rashis. A sankranti is the Sun's entry into a new rashi — twelve a year, one roughly every thirty days. Makar Sankranti is the entry into Makara, Capricorn; Karka Sankranti, its opposite, is the entry into Cancer six months later. Because it is anchored to the Sun, and the Gregorian calendar is also solar, the two stay in step. That is the whole explanation for why Sankranti sits at 14 or 15 January every year, and why the only ambiguity it produces is which of two adjacent days.

The slow drift, and why 15 January years are becoming common

Indian astronomy uses the sidereal zodiac, measured against the fixed stars; the Gregorian calendar is tied to the tropical year, measured against the equinoxes. Those frames are not stationary relative to each other: the Earth's axis wobbles slowly, a motion called the precession of the equinoxes, completing a circuit in roughly twenty-six thousand years. The effect is that sidereal Makar Sankranti creeps forward against the Gregorian date by roughly one day every seventy to eighty years. Centuries ago it fell in early January; today the 14th or 15th; in centuries to come, later still. The exact rate depends on the ayanamsa a tradition uses and reasonable authorities differ, so this should be stated without overclaiming precision. But the direction is not in doubt, and it means 2027 is not an anomaly — it is the leading edge of a change that will make the fifteenth ordinary and the fourteenth the exception.

Uttarayan, the six months, and an honest note on the solstice

Traditionally, Makar Sankranti opens uttarayana — the Sun's northward course — and a six-month half of the year regarded as especially auspicious, closing at Karka Sankranti in July when dakshinayana begins. Uttarayana is described in the texts as the bright half, the devayana or path of the gods, traditionally favoured for sacraments, for beginning study and for undertakings meant to grow. The famous illustration is from the Mahabharata: Bhishma, granted icchha-mrityu, death at his own choosing, lay on his bed of arrows through the end of the war and did not release his life until uttarayana had begun.

Now the honest part. The astronomical winter solstice falls around 21 or 22 December, not mid-January — about three and a half weeks apart, for the same reason as the drift above. Scholars and panchang traditions treat this gap differently and there is no settled answer: some hold that ritual uttarayana is properly counted from the sidereal transit whatever the tropical Sun is doing; others that the observance once tracked the solstice and the sidereal date has drifted from the astronomy it described. Readers are better served knowing the debate exists than being handed one side as settled. What is not in dispute is what people do: the Sun is thanked, the harvest is thanked, and the year is treated as having turned towards light.

The stories behind the day

Surya and Shani. The best-known Sankranti narrative concerns Surya and his son Shani. In the puranic telling there had been a long estrangement, and Makar Sankranti is remembered as the day Surya went to Shani's house — Makara being the rashi owned by Shani — and the two were reconciled. Regional versions differ in detail, but the story is understood to teach that estrangements within a family are worth ending, and that the one with more standing should make the first move. Hence the day's emphasis on visiting, exchanging sweets and speaking sweetly.

Bhishma and the harvest. The Bhishma episode gives Sankranti its gravity in many households, and in parts of north India tarpan and offerings to ancestors are made with that association in mind. Underneath both stories, and probably older, is the harvest. Mid-January is when the kharif crop has been brought in and the rabi sowing is established. Sankranti is the moment a farming society exhales: new rice cooked, new jaggery boiled, the cattle that pulled the plough washed and garlanded, and the first of everything offered before any of it is eaten. Almost every regional form — Pongal, Bihu, Lohri, Suggi — is a harvest thanksgiving first and an astronomical observance second.

Makar Sankranti puja vidhi, step by step

The home observance is short, early and unfussy. In 2027 it belongs to the morning of Friday 15 January, from your local sunrise — 07:15 AM if you are in New Delhi.

1. Snan. Rise before sunrise and bathe. A dip in a river or tirtha is traditionally held to be especially meritorious; otherwise a few drops of Ganga jal in the bathing water is the accepted substitute, and some families add til. Wear clean or new clothes.
2. Prepare the place. Clean the puja area and thali and wipe the brass and copper vessels — see cleaning brass idols and puja items and what goes on a puja thali.
3. Surya arghya. The heart of the observance. Stand facing east where the rising Sun is visible. Fill a copper vessel with clean water and add a few grains of raw rice, a red flower or red sandal, and some til. Raise it to the forehead in both hands and pour the water out slowly in a thin stream so the light passes through it, keeping your gaze soft rather than staring at the Sun.
4. Mantra. While pouring, chant the Gayatri mantra or the Surya invocations — Om Suryaya Namah, Om Adityaya Namah, Om Bhaskaraya Namah. The arghya is traditionally offered three times.
5. Offerings. Offer til, gud, freshly harvested grain and seasonal fruit before the Surya image or family deity; many homes offer a little khichdi as naivedya.
6. Diya and aarti. Light a ghee or oil lamp and let it burn through the observance — see ghee diya versus oil diya and our diya and lamp significance guide — then close with a short aarti.
7. Daan. Then give. Daan is not an appendix to Sankranti; for many traditions it is the observance. Til, gud, blankets, warm clothing, khichdi ingredients, a meal for someone who needs one — done before you sit down to your own festival food.

Samagri for the puja

Most of this is already in an ordinary Indian kitchen. If you are assembling a set, our Pongal and Makar Sankranti edit, the kalash and puja accessories range and the diyas and lamps collection cover what most households ask for.

Til and gud: why sesame and jaggery

In Maharashtra the exchange comes with its own sentence, said while handing over a packet of tilgul: til gul ghya, god god bola — take sesame and jaggery, and speak sweetly. It is a request as much as a greeting, and it lands with force on a festival whose central story is a father and son ending a quarrel. The traditional explanation is that til and gud bind: small separate seeds held together by warm sticky jaggery, the standard image for a family that has decided to hold together. The seasonal explanation runs alongside and is no less true — mid-January is the coldest stretch of the north Indian year, and sesame and jaggery were the most warming, energy-dense foods a village kitchen had. In traditional dietary thinking these are considered warming foods for the cold season; that is a cultural observation, not medical or dietary advice.

Kites: Uttarayan in Gujarat and Rajasthan

In Gujarat and Rajasthan the festival is Uttarayan and it is spent almost entirely on the roof. Cities empty onto their terraces at first light and stay there. The kite is a patang, light paper on a bamboo spine; the line is manja, cotton thread stiffened with an abrasive paste; and the object is to cut the other roof's line and hear the street shout kai po che. In 2027 this happens on Friday 15 January, with the sky over Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Jaipur busy past sunset, when paper lanterns called tukkal go up on the lines. The International Kite Festival at Ahmedabad has grown into one of the largest events of its kind anywhere, with flyers from dozens of countries and the Sabarmati riverfront as the main arena; Gujarat Tourism notifies exact dates each year, so check the official announcement rather than last year's schedule.

A word about manja, said plainly

This is the part of the festival that causes real injuries every year, so please read it as practical safety guidance rather than as law or lecture. Traditional manja is cotton thread coated with ground glass and rice glue — sharp, but it breaks and degrades. The problem is synthetic line, the nylon and plastic thread sold as "Chinese manja", which does not break under load and does not rot away. It cuts deeply. Birds are maimed and killed in large numbers on it every January, and there are human injuries and deaths each year, mostly to motorcyclists and children, from line strung across roads and flyovers. Synthetic and glass-coated nylon manja is banned in several Indian states and by orders of the National Green Tribunal. This is general information, not legal advice; check your own state's current notification.

What a family can sensibly do: buy plain cotton or uncoated thread for children; fly from a terrace with a parapet rather than an open edge; keep small children away from the reel while a kite is under tension; never fly near overhead electrical lines; and do not chase a cut kite into a road. If you find a bird tangled in line, cut the line rather than pulling it, and call a local rescue group.

Ganga Sagar: the snan at Sagardwip

Where the Ganga finally reaches the sea, at Sagardwip in South 24 Parganas, the largest single gathering of the Sankranti calendar takes place. Pilgrims bathe at the confluence and then walk to the Kapil Muni temple. The old saying is that all other tirthas may be visited again and again, but Ganga Sagar once — a line that acknowledges how hard the journey used to be.

The story of the site is the story of the Ganga's descent. King Sagara's sixty thousand sons, searching for a sacrificial horse, dug down to the underworld and disturbed the sage Kapila in meditation; his glance reduced them to ash. Their descendant Bhagiratha performed austerities for generations to bring the Ganga down from heaven so her waters might touch the ashes and release them. She came, held in Shiva's matted hair to break the fall, and followed Bhagiratha to the sea at this spot. The snan re-enacts that release, which is why the ashram and the bathing ghat are inseparable. The mela draws attendance in the millions, with a temporary township and transit camps at Kolkata and Kakdwip.

On the dates, please be careful. The main snan falls on Makar Sankranti day, which in 2027 is Friday 15 January 2027. But the mela period is notified by the Government of West Bengal each year, usually in November or December. We are deliberately not printing a hard mela date range for 2027, because no authoritative source exists yet and because every aggregator currently publishing one has assumed Sankranti is on 14 January, which is wrong for 2027. Wait for the official notification and book against that.

One festival, many names: Sankranti across India

Sankranti is less one festival with regional variations than a dozen distinct festivals sharing an astronomical trigger. A Tamil household and a Punjabi household observing the same transit would barely recognise each other's day.

In Tamil Nadu it is Pongal, over four days. It opens with Bhogi on Thursday 14 January 2027, when old things are burnt at dawn and kolams are drawn. Thai Pongal on Friday 15 January 2027 is the day itself, the first of the Tamil month of Thai. New rice, milk and jaggery are boiled outdoors in a decorated clay pot, and at the moment it froths over the rim the family calls Pongalo Pongal — the boiling over is not an accident to be prevented but the auspicious sign of the day, abundance visibly exceeding its container. Mattu Pongal on Saturday 16 January 2027 honours the cattle, bathed, horns painted and fed the first pongal. Kaanum Pongal, the fourth day, falls the day after Mattu Pongal and is kept for visiting; only one source gives it a firm 2027 date, so we place it rather than pin it. See also our note on Thai Pusam, later in the same month.

In Gujarat and Rajasthan it is Uttarayan on Friday 15 January 2027 — the kite day, with undhiyu and jalebi on the terrace and the sky itself as the observance.

In Punjab the great night is Lohri, on Thursday 14 January 2027 — the evening before Sankranti, which is why Lohri sits on the 14th this year rather than the 13th where habit would place it. A bonfire is built in the courtyard, and revdi, gajak, popcorn and sesame thrown into it while people circle the flame. The songs recall Dulla Bhatti, the folk hero of Akbar's time remembered for rescuing girls from being trafficked and arranging their marriages himself. Calendars disagree about Lohri too: sources that assume Sankranti is on the 14th mechanically place Lohri on the 13th, and some carry that in their standing text even when their own computed value says otherwise. Drik Panchang and Prokerala both compute Lohri 2027 to Thursday 14 January. The next morning is kept in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal as Maghi, with a bath before dawn and, at Muktsar, a large fair.

In Assam it is Magh Bihu or Bhogali Bihu, on Friday 15 January 2027, the feasting Bihu of the three. On the eve, young men build a bhelaghar of bamboo, thatch and banana leaf and spend the night in it eating the food of the harvest; at dawn they bathe and set fire to the meji, a tall conical structure of wood and bamboo, offering pithas and betel into the flames as the sun comes up.

In West Bengal it is Poush Sankranti, on Friday 15 January 2027, the last day of Poush and the pithe festival: pithe puli, patishapta stuffed with coconut and date-palm jaggery, and payesh, all built around nolen gur; the Ganga Sagar snan is the same day. Across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar the day is simply Khichdi — rice and urad dal offered, eaten with ghee, curd and chokha, and donated; at the Gorakhnath temple in Gorakhpur an enormous khichdi offering runs through the day. Sankranti is also a major snan day at Prayagraj, where the Magh Mela occupies the sangam through the month.

In Maharashtra Sankranti is the tilgul festival above all, with black clothes worn against the cold and haldi-kunku gatherings through Magh. In Karnataka it is Suggi, and its defining custom is ellu birodhu — carrying white sesame, jaggery, groundnut, dry coconut and fried chana to neighbours with the request that they take it and speak well; cattle are decorated and, in some villages, led over a low fire. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana it is Pedda Panduga, the big festival, over four days: Bhogi with its dawn fire and the Bhogi pallu poured over children's heads; Sankranti with the muggu drawn at the door; Kanuma, the cattle day, which is the farmer's own day; and Mukkanuma for visiting, while Haridasus sing at the door and Gangireddu bulls are led through the streets.

In Kerala the period coincides with the culmination of the Sabarimala season: Makara Vilakku, when after the deeparadhana the Thiruvabharanam ornaments are brought to Sannidhanam and the light is seen on the Ponnambalamedu hill — readers drawn to the Deepam observances of the south may like our piece on Karthigai Deepam. In Kashmir, Pandit households keep Shishur Saenkraat with a family meal. In the Kumaon hills it is Ghughuti or Kale Kauva, when sweet dough is fried in the shape of small birds, strung into garlands and hung around children's necks; the children go out and call the crows to eat, one of the gentlest customs in the Indian calendar. In Jharkhand, Tusu Parab closes with the immersion of the decorated Tusu at the riverside on Sankranti morning. In Odisha it is Sankranti with makara chaula, and in Nepali-speaking regions Maghe Sankranti with ghee, sweet potato and til laddoo.

What is traditionally done, and traditionally avoided

Sankranti has a well-defined etiquette, most of it about giving and about restraint. This is tradition described, not rules with promised outcomes.

Is there a fast on Makar Sankranti?

No — and this is worth saying plainly, because much festival writing assumes every observance comes with a vrat. Makar Sankranti is not a fasting festival for most families. It is a feasting and daan festival: new grain cooked, sweets exchanged, cattle fed and food given away. Pongal, khichdi, undhiyu, pithe and tilgul are not fast food by anyone's definition. What some households keep is lighter than a vrat — many take nothing before the snan and Surya arghya are done and eat only afterwards, a fast in the sense of a sequence rather than a deprivation; others keep a sattvic day. Neither is required. If your practice is built around fasting days, the ones that matter here are the Ekadashis — see our Ekadashi list and fasting guide and our Purnima and Amavasya dates.

Hindu festival calendar: the first half of 2027

These are the major dates for the first half of 2027, each verified against two independent panchang sources. Timings within a day are local; take the tithi window for your own city before fixing a muhurat.

The major ones are written up in full: Vasant Panchami, Maha Shivratri 2027, Holi and Holika Dahan 2027, Chaitra Navratri 2027, Ram Navami 2027 and Akshaya Tritiya 2027.

Visit us or order online

If you are setting out a thali for the Surya arghya on the morning of Friday 15 January, the piece most households reach for is a simple brass lamp. Our Brass Aarti Diya is traditionally used for the aarti that closes a Makar Sankranti puja, and it sits equally well in the daily niche for the rest of the year. Alongside it, the Pongal and Makar Sankranti edit gathers what the season calls for, and the wider brass collection covers the rest of a puja shelf. You are welcome to see any of it at the Divine Hindu Store, Jayanagar 3rd Block East, Bengaluru 560011, or to order online for delivery across India.

Disclaimer: Shared for general devotional, cultural and informational purposes. Panchang timings vary by city and by the ayanamsa a publisher follows; where sources disagree we have said so rather than choose for you, and we would encourage you to confirm any ritual timing against a panchang for your own location or with your family priest. Notes on manja are general safety information, not legal advice; notes on seasonal foods are cultural observations, not medical or dietary advice. Mela dates and holiday lists set by government or temple authorities should be checked against the official 2027 notification.