Vishu വിഷു

Overview

Vishu is Kerala’s spring new year, kept on the day the Sun enters Mesha (Aries) — around 14 April, the same solar ingress as Baisakhi in Punjab, Puthandu in Tamil Nadu, Pohela Boishakh in Bengal and Bihu in Assam. Its centre is the Vishukkani, the first sight of the year: an arrangement of auspicious things before the family deity, seen on waking with eyes closed until the moment. The elder of the house gives each younger member a coin (Vishu kaineettam); the konna (golden shower) tree flowers for the day; and the sadya follows. Guruvayur’s Krishna temple is the state’s Vishu shrine.

Story

Vishu has no Puranic story of its own; it is the solar new year, kept in Kerala with Krishna’s image at its centre. The Guruvayur tradition holds the temple’s Vishukkani to be the sight the whole state wishes for, and the crowds there before dawn are the largest of the day. A story told to children has Krishna killing the demon Narakasura on this day — the Bhagavata Purana’s Narakasura episode is usually placed at Naraka Chaturdashi in the north — and another marks it as the day the Sun turned back to its proper course after Ravana’s fall. Neither is the day’s charter; the kani is.

How the day is kept

The eve: the Vishukkani is arranged in a bell-metal vessel (uruli) before the shrine — raw rice, the konna flowers, a cucumber, jackfruit, mango, a mirror, a folded new cloth, coins or gold, a lit brass lamp, and the family’s Krishna image — and the room is closed.

Dawn: the mother wakes each member and leads them, eyes covered, to the kani; the lamp is the first thing seen. Then the kaineettam: the elders give coins to the younger members, and to the household’s helpers. A bath, new clothes, the temple.

The day: the Vishu sadya — a feast on a banana leaf, with the sour-sweet Vishu kanji and mampazha pachadi particular to the day — and fireworks in the evening (Vishu padakkam).

Jaap. Krishna’s name, since the kani is before him; the Krishna and Vishnu texts linked below.

Regional forms

• Central and south Kerala: as described; Guruvayur and Sabarimala (which opens for Vishu) draw the largest crowds.
• Malabar: the same day, with the kani arranged before the family deity of the tharavad.
• Tulu Nadu (coastal Karnataka): Bisu, the same new year with a kani of its own.
• Tamil Nadu: Puthandu, with a kani tray at dawn and the year’s almanac read at the temple.
• Punjab: Baisakhi; Bengal: Pohela Boishakh; Assam: Rongali Bihu; Odisha: Maha Vishuba Sankranti — the same ingress under regional names.

The date

The day of the Sun’s sidereal entry into Mesha. Kerala’s rule keeps Vishu on the ingress day unless the ingress falls late in the day, in which case the next morning; this site applies an afternoon cut-off for Thiruvananthapuram and flags the row for review, since Malayalam almanacs state the exact rule differently.