ವಿಷು | Vishu

Vishu is the new year of Kerala, kept on the first day of Medam, the Malayalam month that opens when the sun enters Mesha. It falls on the 14th or 15th of April. The name comes from the Sanskrit vishuva, equal, the day of equal day and night: the festival once stood at the spring equinox, and the slow drift of the sidereal zodiac against the seasons has since carried it some three weeks later. It is the same solar moment that opens the year in Tamil Nadu as Puthandu and in Bengal as Pohela Boishakh, each by its own rule.

The vishukkani

The whole day turns on what is seen first. Kani means that which is seen first, and the vishukkani is set out the night before: rice, fruit, a golden cucumber, the yellow flowers of the konna tree, a mirror, coins and a lamp, before an image of Krishna. At dawn each person in the house is led to it with eyes closed, so that the first sight of the new year is this. What is seen first that morning is held to shape the year, which is why the kani is prepared with such care.

Then the elders give the vishukkaineettam, a coin or a little money, to the young and to those who depend on them, often in sums ending in one, such as eleven or a hundred and one, for a beginning. The sadya, the festival meal, follows, with dishes that set sweet, sour and bitter side by side, and the crackers of Vishu, the vishu padakkam, are let off from the days before. The konna, Cassia fistula or Indian laburnum, comes into flower in just this season, and its hanging golden sprays are as much a sign of Vishu as the lamp.

Bisu on the Karnataka coast

Coastal Karnataka keeps the same day as Bisu, or Bisu Parba, the new year of the Tulu calendar and the first day of its month Paggu. The Tulu household sets out its own kani at dawn: rice, betel leaves and areca nut, a half-husked coconut, ixora flowers, a lamp, water, fruit, vegetables, gold and a mirror. The young seek the elders’ blessing and are given money, a festive meal is shared on plantain leaves, and in farming families seeds are sown at the edge of a field that evening as the season’s work begins. The lunar new year, Chandramana Ugadi, is kept there as well, in March or April.

Which day Anudina gives

Anudina gives Vishu on Medam 1 by the Kerala rule for the first day of a solar month. The daylight is divided into five equal parts. If the sun enters Mesha within the first three, that day is Medam 1; if it enters later in the day or at night, the next day is. Anudina finds the moment of the sankranti by the drik reckoning. The printed Malayalam calendars and the Kerala government’s list of holidays can put Medam 1 a day after the drik reckoning, and when they do, Anudina names both dates. For 2027 it gives 15 April.

Vishu therefore falls on the same day as Puthandu in some years and a day after it in others. The Tamil rule keeps a sankranti anywhere before sunset on the same day, while the Kerala rule stops at three fifths of the daylight. In 2027 Puthandu is 14 April and Vishu 15 April. Vishu appears in Anudina under the South Indian custom, and for readers on the North Indian custom when festivals of other regions are shown.

Two new years in Kerala

The Malayalam era, the Kollam era or Kollavarsham, does not turn at Vishu. Its year begins on the first of Chingam, in August, and the year number changes then. Medam is counted as the first of the twelve solar months, and Vishu is the new year of that count, the one kept as a festival. It belongs with the other solar new years of Mesha sankranti: Puthandu, Pohela Boishakh and Bohag Bihu. Ugadi, the lunar new year of Karnataka, comes earlier in the spring, on a date that moves with the moon.