Holi, is celebrated on the day after Purnima of Falgun Month.
Holi is a cultural festival of India and while there are no rituals of Holi, for Holika Dahan/Samvat a certain ritual sort of Bon Fire is lit. The ash of bon fire was used for applying on each other and that's perhaps how holi of colours was born. The ash was also kept in home as sacred ash. Even today Masaan Holi for Banaras is known for Holi of sadhus with ashes of pyres.
There is a lesser known history of Holi also:
The Bonfire of Holi eve is also called Samvat. Another meaning of Samvat is "Year" as in "Samvatsar".
Our festival, and small rituals in them are often cultural artifacts of ancient past and history.
India as other agrarian societies followed Luni-Solar calenders for effective farming cycles and there are several luni-solar calenders in different regions of India.
Indian Calendar system has had two parrallel systems for starting of year and months:
Purnimanta system : Months start on Next day after Purnima, ie from Pratipada (1st day) of Krishna Paksha. Months have 1 Krishna Paksha followed by 1 Shukla Paksha. Vikrami Sanvat follows this system. Mostly followed in North India and Nepal.
Amant System: Months start on Next day after Amavasya, ie from Pratipada (1st day) of Shukla Paksha. Months have 1 Shukla Paksha followed by 1 Krishna Paksha. This system is followed in many regions of South India. Saka Samvat follows this system. Mostly followed in South India.
Names of months are same, astrology is same in both calender systems. Only difference is in months starting and ending in different dates.
Purnimanta is the older Vedic system, Amanta became widespread later, and the two have existed side-by-side for over 2,000 years with regional preferences.
Holi Eve (Phalguna Purnima) is the last day of the year in the Purnimanta reckoning—the month of Phalguna ends on that full moon, so the next day (Chaitra Shukla Pratipada) is New Year.
In 2026 Vikrami Samvat 2083 starts from 4th March 2026.
Saka Samvat 1948 starts from 20 March 2026 ie one paksh later .
Basically it means that for most of Indian history, Holi actually was the New year day celebration.
Holika Dahan, or Samvat was the New year eve with the bonfire of burning of symbolic old year and celebration of welcome of New Year.
In Indian usual way of life, this ritual also became a complete festival and Fun, with new clothes, good food and new clothes etc all got added.
Happy Holi and Happy New Year 2083 (Vikrami)!!
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