Festival
Holi
Also known as the Festival of Colours · Dhuleti
When it falls
Two days · Phalguna Purnima → Krishna Pratipada (two days)
2027
- Holika DahanSun, 21 Mar 2027
- ★ HoliMon, 22 Mar 2027
Also: 2026 · 3 Mar
Significance
Holi is the festival of spring and of colour — two days that move from fire to play.
It is built on the story of Holika and Prahlada: Prahlada, a child devoted to Vishnu, is set in a fire by his demon-king father with the fire-proof Holika holding him; the devotion endures and Holika burns instead. The play is often tied to Krishna, whose teasing colour-games with Radha and the gopis (cowherd girls) give Holi its mischief and its tenderness. It is the most unguarded festival of the year — joy made deliberately messy, and for a few hours the ordinary distances between people set aside.
The two days
Holika Dahan
Phalguna Purnima
The eve of Holi. A community bonfire marks the burning of Holika and the survival of the child-devotee Prahlada — the old year’s heaviness, arrogance most of all, given to the flames.
Holi
Krishna Pratipada · also Dhuleti, Rangwali Holi
The colour-play. Dry gulal (coloured powder) and water thrown freely, sweets like gujiya shared, and a day on which the usual rules of who-may-approach-whom are briefly suspended.
The timing, explained
Holi is anchored to the Purnima (full moon) of the lunar month of Phalguna, the last full moon before spring. Holika Dahan is kept on the night of that full moon; the colour-play, Holi / Dhuleti, falls the next morning — which in this almanac's Amanta reckoning is Krishna Pratipada, the first day of the waning fortnight. Because it tracks the moon, the Western date shifts each year, but it always lands at the Phalguna full moon — the seam between winter and spring.
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