Makar Sankranti 2027: Date, Punya Kaal, Snan & Daan

Saffron-clad Shiva devotees on the Kanwar Yatra · Shiv Kavar Samiti

Of all the festivals of the Hindu year, Makar Sankranti is the one that turns our faces towards the Sun. It is the day the Sun begins its northward journey, the sky fills with kites, kitchens fill with the smell of til and gud, and the ghats of the holy rivers fill with devotees taking the sacred dip before dawn. Unlike most Hindu festivals, which follow the moon, Makar Sankranti follows the Sun — which is why it falls on almost the same date every year. This warm, plain-language guide tells you when Makar Sankranti 2027 is expected, what the punya kaal means for your snan and daan, why we give til-gud and khichdi, what the festival means in the sky above us, the many beautiful names it carries across India, and how you can turn this greatest of daan-days into seva for those who have less.

What is Makar Sankranti?

Makar Sankranti marks the moment the Sun (Surya) leaves the sign of Sagittarius (Dhanu) and enters the sign of Capricorn — Makara in Sanskrit. This transit is called the Makara Sankranti, and from it the festival takes its name. It is one of twelve sankrantis in the year, one for each time the Sun changes rashi, but this one is the most sacred of all, because it also marks the beginning of Uttarayan — the six-month period in which the Sun travels towards the north. In our tradition Uttarayan is considered the daytime of the gods, an auspicious, light-filled half of the year, and so Makar Sankranti is welcomed as a turning point from darkness towards light, from cold towards warmth, from ending towards beginning.

It is also, quietly, a harvest festival. Across India the winter crop is ripening or newly gathered by mid-January, and Makar Sankranti is the day the farming family thanks the Sun, the earth and the cattle for the year's bounty. So the festival holds three things at once — an astronomical event, a spiritual turning, and a harvest thanksgiving — which is why it is celebrated so widely, under so many names, and with such warmth.

When is Makar Sankranti 2027? Expected date

Makar Sankranti 2027 is expected to fall on Thursday, 14 January 2027. Because the festival is tied to the Sun's transit rather than the moon's tithi, it stays remarkably steady — it lands on 14 or 15 January almost every year, and a slow drift means the date occasionally shifts to the 15th. For 2027, most panchangs point to 14 January, though some households and regions observe the snan and daan on the following morning of 15 January depending on the exact moment of transit and their local reckoning. As always, please confirm the precise date and the punya kaal for your own city with a reliable local panchang, since these depend on your location and sunrise.

Makar Sankranti 2027 punya kaal (expected)

The moment the Sun actually crosses into Makara is called the sankranti kshan, and the hours around it are the punya kaal — the sacred window in which the holy bath, charity and worship are believed to carry the greatest merit. Within it lies a shorter, most auspicious stretch called the maha punya kaal. These timings differ from city to city because they depend on the exact instant of transit and your local sunrise, so the figures below are expected and approximate, and you should confirm them for your own location:

A gentle note: if the transit falls late in the day, many panchangs move the main punya kaal — and therefore the snan and daan — to the sunrise hours of the next morning. This is exactly why, in some years and some regions, you will see families bathing and giving on 15 January even when the sankranti moment is on the 14th. Do not worry over the difference; give and bathe with a sincere heart within the window your local panchang shows, and the merit is the same.

The holy snan: the sacred dip of Makar Sankranti

The first and most beloved act of Makar Sankranti is the snan — the ritual bath in a holy river at dawn. It is believed that on this day the waters of the sacred rivers are especially charged with purifying grace, and that a dip taken during the punya kaal washes away sin and past karma and opens the way to punya. The most famous of these baths is at Prayagraj, at the Triveni Sangam where the Ganga, Yamuna and the unseen Saraswati meet; Makar Sankranti is traditionally the first great bathing day of the Magh Mela, and in Kumbh years it is one of the principal shahi snan dates when millions gather. Other beloved bathing tirthas include Haridwar and Rishikesh on the Ganga, Gangasagar in Bengal where the Ganga meets the sea, Varanasi, and Ujjain on the Shipra.

Not everyone can travel to a great tirtha, and the shastras are kind about this. A bath in any flowing river, or even at home with a little Ganga jal added to the water and the sacred rivers remembered in the heart, is accepted with love. What matters is the sankalp — the quiet intention, taken at dawn, to begin this new solar year purified and turned towards the light.

Daan: why Makar Sankranti is the great festival of giving

If snan is the first act of Makar Sankranti, daan is its very soul. Of all the days in the Hindu year, this is held to be among the most powerful for charity — it is said that whatever is given with a pure heart during the punya kaal of Uttarayan returns multiplied many times over. The giving is warm and practical, suited to the deep of winter: the things most often offered are those that carry heat, sweetness and sustenance. The traditional daan of Makar Sankranti includes:

• 🔱Til and gud (sesame and jaggery) — the signature offering of the day, given as laddoos, chikki or loose, for their warmth and sweetness.
• 🔱Khichdi ingredients — rice, urad dal, ghee and salt, so beloved that in much of North India the festival itself is simply called Khichdi.
• 🔱Warm clothing and blankets — for the poor and the elderly against the January cold, one of the most fitting gifts of the season.
• 🔱Grains and cooked food (anna-daan) — feeding the hungry, the highest of all charities in our tradition.
• 🔱Ghee, oil, sesame oil and firewood — things that give warmth and light in the cold.
• 🔱Gifts for cattle and the care of cows (go-daan and go-seva), honouring the animals of the harvest.

On Makar Sankranti it is not the size of the gift that is weighed, but the warmth of the hand that gives it — a single blanket to one who shivers can outshine a mountain of gold.

Til and gud, and the khichdi tradition

Ask anyone in Maharashtra and they will greet you on this day with the gentle words, 'Til gul ghya, god god bola' — take this sesame and jaggery, and speak sweetly. There is deep wisdom in the custom. Til and gud are warming foods, exactly what the body needs in the coldest weeks of the year, and offering them to friends, elders and even those we have quarrelled with is a way of dissolving old bitterness and beginning the new season in sweetness. The exchange of til-gud laddoos and chikki is one of the tenderest customs of Makar Sankranti.

Khichdi carries the same spirit in the kitchen. In Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and much of North India the festival is so tied to this humble dish of rice and dal cooked with ghee that the day is called Khichdi. It is cooked, offered to the deity, given in daan, and shared — a warm, wholesome, sattvic food that feeds rich and poor alike. To give khichdi, or the raw grains to make it, on this day is considered especially blessed.

The astronomical and spiritual meaning of Uttarayan

Beneath the sweets and the kites lies a beautiful piece of sky-watching handed down over thousands of years. Through the winter months the point where the Sun rises has been creeping southward; on Makar Sankranti our tradition marks the turn, when the Sun begins its journey back towards the north. This northward course is Uttarayan, and it lasts about six months until Karka Sankranti in July, when the southward Dakshinayan begins. Uttarayan is revered as the auspicious, growing half of the year — the daytime of the gods — when days lengthen and the light returns.

The Mahabharata gives Uttarayan its most moving meaning. The great grandsire Bhishma, lying wounded on his bed of arrows, held onto his life through the whole of Dakshinayan and chose to leave his body only after the Sun turned north — for departing during the sacred Uttarayan was believed to open the highest path. This is why the period is held so holy, and why Makar Sankranti, its threshold, is a day for turning the mind, like the Sun, towards the light.

The many names of Makar Sankranti across India

Few festivals wear as many names as this one. As the same Sun turns north over the whole land, every region celebrates in its own colour and calls the day by its own beloved name. Here are some of the most cherished:

The customs differ — boiling the first rice in a new pot until it overflows in Tamil Nadu, lighting the great bonfire of Lohri in Punjab, filling the Gujarat sky with countless kites — but the heart is one: gratitude to the Sun for the harvest, and the welcoming of the light.

Kite-flying: the joy that fills the sky

No image of Makar Sankranti is complete without the sky full of kites. In Gujarat, Rajasthan and much of North India, families climb to their rooftops from early morning, and the blue January sky is soon dotted with kites of every colour, the air ringing with cries of victory as one string cuts another. It is a joy shared across ages and faiths. There is wisdom here too, as with everything on this day: the tradition of rising early and spending the morning in the sunshine is a gentle way of taking in the warm winter Sun, whose gift the whole festival honours. If you fly a kite this Makar Sankranti, spare a thought for the birds, and choose thread that will not harm them or the people below.

Turn this daan-day into seva with us

Makar Sankranti is, above every other day of the year, the festival of giving — and there is no giving greater than anna-daan, the feeding of the hungry. On the very day when the cold bites hardest and the shastras promise that charity returns multiplied, thousands still go without a warm meal or a blanket. This is where your daan can become living seva. Our Shiv Kavar Samiti, on NH-8 at Mahipalpur in New Delhi, has served free bhojan and warmth to travellers, the poor and countless devotees for over thirty years — and Makar Sankranti is a day made for exactly this kind of giving.

Let your Makar Sankranti daan feed someone this winter. A gift of khichdi grains, of warm blankets, of a plate of hot food to one who has none — offered through the samiti — carries the full punya of the day and reaches a hand that truly needs it. You need not travel to a distant tirtha to earn the merit of Uttarayan; you can turn it, from wherever you are, into a warm meal for a stranger.

How you can give this Makar Sankranti

Every plate of anna-daan, every blanket and every glass of clean water is made possible by the daan of well-wishers. If you would like to give this Makar Sankranti, you can donate online at our /donate page through Razorpay's secure checkout, or by bank transfer to our Punjab National Bank account (A/C 0149000104323988, IFSC PUNB0014900, Khan Market branch). To offer khichdi grains, til-gud, blankets or ration, to volunteer as a sewadar, or simply to ask how to reach us, message us on WhatsApp at +91 98189 08237. May the Sun that turns north this Makar Sankranti turn your heart towards the light, and may your giving return to you multiplied many times over. Har Har Mahadev.