Baisakhi

Annual festival taking place in the
lunar month of Baisakh (April–May),
for which it is named. Baisakhi marks
the sun’s transition into Aries, which
according to the Indian estimation
occurs around April 14. This festival
marks the beginning of the solar year
on the traditional calendar. Baisakhi
is celebrated mainly in the north, particularly in the state of Punjab and its
surrounding regions. In the days when
pilgrims still traveled through the
Himalayas on foot, this festival
marked the beginning of the
Himalayan pilgrimage season; during
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Baisakhi was the occasion for
a great trading festival in the town of
Haridwar, the gateway to the
Himalayan shrines. Although this fair
has long been eclipsed, Baisakhi is
still the climactic bathing (snana)
day for the Haridwar Kumbha Mela
and Ardha Kumbha Mela, each of
which is a bathing festival that occurs
about every twelve years when
Jupiter is in the sign of Aquarius (for
the Kumbha Mela) or Leo (for the
Ardha Kumbha Mela).