Vishu 2016

Vishu is a festival observed according to the Hindu calendar. Its date and customary practices can vary by region and local Panchang.

Vishu is Kerala's celebration of the beginning of the Malayalam solar month Medam, when the Sun enters sidereal Mesha. Its best-known custom is Vishukkani, the auspicious first sight arranged before dawn. An elder places rice, golden konna blossoms, fruits, vegetables including kani vellari, a mirror, coins, a sacred text, a lamp and an image of Krishna or Vishnu together. Family members are awakened and led to see the arrangement before looking at other things. The combination represents nourishment, learning, light, material stability and the need for self-reflection.

The day includes Vishukkaineetam, gifts of money from elders to children and younger relatives, temple visits and the Vishu sadya meal. Families may use festive fireworks where locally permitted and safe. Vishu is not identical with the Malayalam civil calendar's Chingam-based new year, even though it has long been called a new-year festival in cultural usage. Nor does one universally attested myth explain every household's first-sight practice; Krishna devotion and solar-season renewal provide different layers of meaning.

Traditions vary among Kerala districts and the Malayali diaspora. The appropriate civil date depends on the Sun's entry into Mesha and the regional rule for the time of ingress relative to daylight. The database's three-fifths-of-day threshold should be independently checked against Kerala almanacs for several years.

Vishu is valued for devotion, family tradition and the spiritual or seasonal meaning attached to the day.

The kani is seen at first light, and the eldest gives Vishukkaineetam - a small coin - to everyone younger. A sadya is eaten, and the day's food deliberately carries all the tastes, the bitter included. Firecrackers are set off in the morning rather than at night.

Kerala and Tulu Nadu, at the sun's entry into Mesha - the same day as Vaisakhi, Puthandu and Bohag Bihu. Kerala's other new year, Chingam 1, opens the Malayalam era in August, so the state effectively keeps two and treats Vishu as the astronomical one.