Makar Sankranti: The Festival Of The New Beginning

Makar Sankranti is here and it is time to eat Til Gul ke laddoo and celebrate the Kite festival. Unlike the other festivals, everyone are all set to compete in the air with our colorful kites, the shouting from the neighborhood adds excitement along with the yummy sesame delicacies; and all these happens on the top of your house. Besides the fun, there are some history and importance of the day.

 

People celebrate this festival with great enthusiasm and fervor. Devotees visit. The festival is an important occasion to mark the end of dark phases and the beginning of a new phase in everyone’s lives. What is unique about this festival is that, while all the other festivals follow the lunar calendar for calculating the precise date of every festival, this is the only festival that follows the solar calendar, and hence it falls on the same date almost every year.

 

It is dedicated to Lord Sun as the sun crosses the equator and enters the northern hemisphere astronomically. To recompense for the distinction that happens due to the revolution around the sun, every 80 years the day of Sankranti is deferred by one day. Due to this, this festival is also known as Uttarayaan in Gujarat. It has celestial importance. It also refers to a specific solar day in the Hindu calendar.

 

Makar Sankranti is also regarded as Makara Sankranti or Maghi, associated with Surya, the solar deity. On this auspicious day, the sun begins its northward journey and enters the sign of Makar (the Capricorn) from the Tropic of Cancer. And it's a festival of a new beginning. As per ancient scriptures, it is believed that on the auspicious day of Makar Sankranti, Lord Surya visits his son Lord Shani, who is also the representative of Capricorn.

 

It is known as the festival of Harvest as it is the time when the first harvest of the year in most of the parts of India where the food grains are worshipped in different ways in different regions like Pongal in Andhra and TN, Sankranti in Karnataka, and Maharashtra, Baisakhi in Punjab and nearby states. It is celebrated in various States by different names. It is celebrated as Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Uttarayan in Gujarat, Bihu in Assam, and Poush Sankranti in West Bengal. In Gujarat, the kite festival is organized on the occasion of Makar Sankranti.