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Sankranti (Makara Sankranti — Pedda Panduga)

Surya — the Sun; harvest and ancestor worship

Shaiva Siddhanta

Dates 2026–2027

Mantra

ॐ सूर्याय नमः । ॐ घृणिः सूर्याय नमः ।

Om suryaya namah. Om ghrinih suryaya namah.

Salutations to the Sun. Salutations to the brilliantly resplendent Sun.

How to recite

Sankranti is celebrated over four days — Bhogi (eve, with the bonfire of old items at dawn), Makara Sankranti (the Sun's transit into Capricorn, with the gobbemma rangoli and pongali offering), Kanuma (cattle worship and gratitude to farm animals), and Mukkanuma (a community feast). Wake before sunrise, draw the muggu (rangoli) with rice flour at the doorway, place gobbemma (cow-dung balls topped with pumpkin flowers) at the centre, cook the new-harvest pongali in a clay pot until it boils over symbolising abundance, and offer the first portion to Surya facing east.

Benefits

Sankranti — known affectionately as 'Pedda Panduga' (the big festival) in Telugu households — marks the Sun's northward transit (Uttarayana) and the harvest of the kharif crop. It is the most important social festival of the Telugu calendar: families return to ancestral villages, daughters and married women come home, the bommala koluvu may be set up again, gangireddu cows are paraded with bells and decorations, and the four-day feast strengthens kinship and gratitude to the Sun, the harvest, the ancestors, and the cattle that till the land.

✦ Special Note

Per the Drik Panchang. Makara Sankranti falls on January 14 in most years (occasionally January 15 in leap-cycle years) regardless of the lunar calendar — it is a solar festival.

Foods Allowed

Foods to Avoid

Meal Idea

Sweet chakkara pongali and savoury khara pongali offered to Surya at sunrise; a four-day spread of ariselu, sakinalu, atukulu, sugarcane, and sesame-jaggery sweets shared with extended family and neighbours.

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