ರಕ್ಷಾ ಬಂಧನ | Raksha Bandhan

Raksha Bandhan is the tying of a protective thread, the rakhi, on the wrist. A sister ties it on her brother, and he undertakes to look after her. It falls on the full moon of Shravana.

Why the afternoon decides it

Most observances take the tithi at sunrise. This one takes it at aparahna, the fourth of the five parts into which the daylight is divided, roughly the middle of the afternoon. The day that carries Raksha Bandhan is the day whose aparahna has Purnima running in it.

This matters in practice. If Purnima begins late in the morning, that day has Chaturdashi at sunrise but Purnima in its afternoon, and the rakhi is tied that day, not the next. It is also why Raksha Bandhan and Yajur Upakarma, which share the full moon, are occasionally on different dates: Upakarma is reckoned at sunrise and this is not.

Bhadra

A second condition applies, and it is the one that fills the almanacs with times. The thread is not tied during Bhadra, the karana Vishti, which is held to be strongly inauspicious for beginnings and for anything undertaken for protection. Shravana purnima very often opens with Bhadra running, because of where Vishti sits in the sequence of karanas, and the rite then waits until it ends. See Karana: the half tithi.

The window an almanac prints for Raksha Bandhan is the result of these two conditions together: after Bhadra ends, and while Purnima lasts, with aparahna preferred within that.

What is done

The thread is prepared with rice grains, a little turmeric and a mustard seed or two folded into it in the traditional form, though a bought rakhi is now the norm. The sister performs arati, applies tilaka, ties the thread on the right wrist and gives a sweet. The brother gives a gift. Where there is no brother or sister by birth, the relation is made by the tying.

Karnataka practice

This is a North and West Indian festival, and it is honest to say so. In most of Karnataka the full moon of Shravana is first of all Upakarma day, and the sibling festival that Karnataka has kept for much longer is Naga Panchami, on which a sister pours milk for her brother. Raksha Bandhan has spread widely in the cities over the last few decades and is now kept in many Karnataka households alongside the older observance rather than in place of it.

Along the Konkan and Karnataka coast the same day is Narali Purnima. A coconut is offered to the sea, and the fishing boats go out again after the monsoon. That is the older use of the day on this coast.

The stories

Several are told: Indrani tying a thread on Indra before his battle with Vritra, Yamuna tying one on Yama, Draupadi tearing her garment to bind Krishna’s wounded hand. The first is the one the texts give, and it is worth noting that in it the thread is tied by a wife, not a sister. The sibling reading of the rite is later, and the older sense of a rakhi is simply a thread of protection, which is also what a priest ties on a patron’s wrist at a sankalpa.