Harvest · Mid-April
Also known as Vaisakhi · Vaishakhi · Punjabi Harvest Festival
When it’s celebrated
The exact date shifts each year — it’s fixed from the panchang. Cast your free kundli or check the calendar for this year’s muhurat.
Significance
Baisakhi is the spring harvest festival of Punjab, celebrating the ripening of the rabi crops, and holds special religious significance for Sikhs as the founding day of the Khalsa. A joyous occasion of thanksgiving and community, it also marks the solar new year for several regions, combining agricultural gratitude with cultural and spiritual celebration.
The story
For Sikhs, Baisakhi commemorates the day in 1699 when the tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, founded the Khalsa, the order of initiated Sikhs, at Anandpur Sahib — calling for volunteers willing to give their lives, choosing the Panj Pyare (Five Beloved Ones) and baptising them with amrit, establishing the Sikh identity and the five Ks. For farmers, the day simply celebrates the joyous reaping of the winter-sown harvest.
Rituals
Across India
Baisakhi is the great harvest and Sikh festival of Punjab and Haryana, but the same solar new-year day is celebrated across India under other names: Poila Boishakh in Bengal, Bohag/Rongali Bihu in Assam, Vishu in Kerala, Puthandu in Tamil Nadu, and Pohela Boishakh in the East — all marking the solar new year and the harvest in mid-April.
Questions
Baisakhi celebrates the spring harvest in Punjab and marks the Sikh founding of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699. It combines agricultural thanksgiving with religious and cultural celebration, and is also a solar new year for several regions.
Baisakhi commemorates the day Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib in 1699, choosing the Panj Pyare and establishing the Sikh identity. It is one of the most significant days in the Sikh calendar.
Baisakhi falls in mid-April, when the Sun enters Aries (Mesha Sankranti) and the month of Vaishakh begins. Because it follows the solar calendar, its Gregorian date stays nearly constant each year.
People visit gurdwaras for prayers and kirtan, join Nagar Kirtan processions, perform Bhangra and Gidda dances, attend harvest fairs and feasts, and partake in langar. Farmers celebrate the reaping of the rabi crops with thanksgiving.
No. While it holds special significance for Sikhs as the founding of the Khalsa, Baisakhi is fundamentally a harvest and solar new-year festival celebrated by Hindus and Sikhs alike, with parallels across India under names like Poila Boishakh, Bihu and Vishu.
Book a pooja in your name, find the muhurat, or read the day’s panchang — bring the festival into your own practice.
