Sankranti Dates 2026 — All Twelve, With Punya Kaal Timing

The Sun takes about a year to travel through the twelve signs, spending roughly a month in each. The moment it crosses a boundary is a sankranti, and there are twelve of them in a year. The sankranti dates 2026 table above gives all of them with the exact minute of the crossing for your city.

Unlike almost every other Hindu festival, sankrantis are solar rather than lunar. That is why Makar Sankranti sits in mid-January every year while Diwali and Holi move across a month. It is also why the sun transit dates 2026 are almost identical to those of any other year, shifting by only a day as the calendar drifts.

Each sankranti carries its own regional festival, its own charity and its own agricultural meaning. Together they form the solar skeleton on which the lunar festivals hang.

Here is the all 12 sankranti list with the month each falls in and what it is known for regionally.

Four of the twelve carry more weight than the rest. Makar and Karka mark the two ayanas - the turning points of the Sun's northward and southward journeys. Mesh opens the solar new year across most of India. And Dhanu and Meen each begin Kharmas, closing the wedding calendar for a month.

The rest are observed quietly, mainly through a bath and a donation suited to the season - sesame and jaggery in winter, water and shade in summer, grain after the harvest.

The makar sankranti date and punya kaal draw more attention than any other transit, and with reason. Makar Sankranti marks the beginning of Uttarayana, when the Sun turns north - a period the Mahabharata treats as so auspicious that Bhishma waited on his bed of arrows for it before leaving his body.

It is celebrated under different names across the country on the same day: Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Lohri the evening before in Punjab, Magh Bihu in Assam, Uttarayan in Gujarat with its kite festival, and Khichdi in Uttar Pradesh. Sesame and jaggery are eaten and given in charity everywhere - the til-gud of Maharashtra, the tilkut of Bihar.

The punya kaal on Makar Sankranti is the stretch in which bathing and donation carry the most merit, and it depends on whether the transit falls during the day or at night. Where it falls after sunset, the punya kaal moves to the following morning. The table on this page handles that automatically for your city, which is why the times differ from a national almanac.

The sankranti punya kaal timing follows a rule rather than a fixed clock. The transit itself is an instant; the punya kaal is the window around it, usually taken as four hours before and after when the transit falls in daylight.

Within that sits the maha punya kaal - a tighter window of roughly ninety minutes either side of the exact moment, considered the most concentrated period for charity and bathing. Both are given in the table for every sankranti.

When the crossing happens at night, the observance moves. If it falls after sunset, the punya kaal shifts to the next morning's first few hours; if it falls before sunrise, it belongs to that same morning. Because this depends on your local sunrise, the sankranti punya kaal timing genuinely differs between Delhi and Chennai even though the transit moment does not.

The one thing traditionally avoided is beginning important new work at the exact moment of transition, when the Sun is held to be between houses rather than settled in one.

The mesh sankranti date in mid-April is the beginning of the solar year, and it is one of the few days genuinely celebrated across the whole subcontinent under different names on the same date.

It is Baisakhi in Punjab, marking the harvest and the founding of the Khalsa. It is Vishu in Kerala, where the first thing seen on waking is arranged the night before as the vishukkani. It is Puthandu in Tamil Nadu, Bohag Bihu in Assam, Pohela Boishakh in Bengal, Maha Vishuba Sankranti in Odisha and Vaisakhi across the north.

Astronomically it marks the Sun's entry into sidereal Aries - the same point from which the zodiac is measured in Vedic astrology, which is why the mesh sankranti date also anchors the solar calendar used in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Punjab.

The exact moment and punya kaal for your city are in the table above.

1. The exact crossing. The Sun's sidereal longitude is tracked with the Swiss Ephemeris using the Lahiri ayanamsa, and each boundary crossing is refined to the minute.

2. Local time. The moment is converted to your time zone, and the date shown is the local date on which it occurs.

3. Punya kaal. Your own sunrise and sunset determine whether the transit falls in daylight and therefore where the punya kaal and maha punya kaal windows sit.

Two of the twelve sankrantis divide the year in half. At Makar Sankranti in January the Sun begins its northward journey - Uttarayana - and at Karka Sankranti in July it turns south into Dakshinayana. These are the ayanas, and the tradition treats them very differently.

Uttarayana, the six months from January to July, is called the day of the gods. It is the favoured half for weddings, house entries, thread ceremonies and any auspicious beginning. Dakshinayana, from July to January, is the night of the gods, associated with inward practice, fasting and the ancestors - and it contains Chaturmas, Pitru Paksha and most of the year's major fasts.

The most quoted illustration is Bhishma in the Mahabharata, who held on through his bed of arrows until Uttarayana began before releasing his life, having been granted the choice of his own death. Whether read literally or not, it records how seriously the division was taken.

A technical note worth making: because of precession, the sidereal Makar Sankranti has drifted away from the actual winter solstice by about twenty-three days. The solstice now falls around 21 December while Makar Sankranti falls on 14 or 15 January. Both are observed; they are simply no longer the same event.

Every sankranti carries a customary donation, and the items track the season rather than the sign. This is one of the clearest places where the calendar's agricultural roots show.

Winter sankrantis - Makar and Kumbha - call for sesame, jaggery, blankets, warm clothing and khichdi. The til-gud exchanged in Maharashtra comes with the phrase asking the receiver to speak sweetly; the khichdi given in Uttar Pradesh gave Makar Sankranti its local name.

Spring and summer - Mesh through Mithuna - shift to water, buttermilk, fans, umbrellas, curd and fruit. Setting up a water stall on Mesh or Vrishabha Sankranti is a common form of the donation even now.

Monsoon and autumn - Karka through Vrishchika - move to grain, rice, cloth and lamps as the harvest comes in and the festival season opens.

The underlying idea is consistent across all twelve: give what the season makes scarce. It is a practical instruction that happens to be framed as merit.

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Sankranti Dates 2026 List — Every Period to the Minute

The Sankranti Dates dates 2026 list above gives the start and end of every period in IST with its type.

Sankranti Dates Today — Yes or No, and Until When

Sankranti Dates today is shown at the top of the result and in the form.

Types of Sankranti Dates — the Weekday Decides

Types of Sankranti Dates are named from the weekday the period begins: Sunday Roga, Monday Raja, Tuesday Agni, Friday Chora and Saturday Mrityu, with Wednesday and Thursday unnamed. The timeline colours each period by its type so the serious ones stand out.

Sankranti Dates Rules What Not to Do — the Five Classical Restrictions

Sankranti Dates rules what not to do come down to five things: laying a roof, gathering wood or fuel, making a bed, travelling south, and a cremation without Sankranti Dates shanti. Daily work, office and most rituals continue as normal.

Mrityu Sankranti Dates — the One to Plan Around

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Sankranti Dates Kab Hai — Is Mahine Ka Sankranti Dates

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