Why Makar Sankranti Never Stays on One Date | Future IQ

8,750 views Wait, is this logic right? • Jan 09, 2026

Slog Reference: Sankranti

Description

Why does Makar Sankranti fall on almost the same date every year, while most Indian festivals keep shifting? And if Uttarayan actually begins in December, why do we celebrate it in mid January? This episode breaks a very common assumption about the Indian calendar and reveals the elegant astronomical logic behind Sankranti.

We explore what Sankranti really means, why there are 12 of them every year, and why only Makar Sankranti became culturally significant. From zodiac transitions and solar calendars to leap years and Earth’s slow cosmic wobble, this story connects ancient Indian astronomy with modern science in a surprisingly simple way.

If you’ve ever wondered why Sankranti is sometimes on the 14th and sometimes on the 15th, or how calendars, equinoxes, and traditions like Uttarayan fit together, this episode will completely change how you look at Indian festivals and time itself.

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Videos you may like / referenced in today’s episode:
The Logic of the Hindu Calendar: https://youtu.be/4MdPgt_jdno
Why Diwali Was Never About Religion: https://youtu.be/_AByBm35DgIIs
Is Jyotish Shastra Indian?: https://youtu.be/gatm0hDY-iE

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Source / References:
https://khagolmandal.com/indian-astronomy/astronomy-of-makar-sankranti/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makar_Sankranti
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankranti
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_star#/media/File:Precession_N.gif

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:28 What does the word Sankrant mean?
03:57 Why In January?
05:59 Why does makar sankarti fall on different date every year?
08:12 Why deos Uttarayan Dakshinayan Happen at all?
09:26 The reason for the date shift.
16:01 Why Til-Gul on Makarsankrant?
17:50 Date Shofting is Not Random

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Transcript

- Indian festivals all have dates that shift okay and they all shift together so Diwali is always 20ish days after the sa right uh and they shift by about 10 days every year but Sranti is one festival which doesn't shift it's always like 14th or 15th January every year why is that uh a because primarily there is a difference in the length of the Indian calendar and the Gregorian calendar but also scranti isn't it also called utra and So that's when the sun you know starts moving northwards and all of that.

0m 33s Fair enough. First of all, Sranti is an Indian festival. It is not a western festival. So there is no reason it should be tied to the Gregorian calendar. But yes, it has something to do with Uttarayan, right? uh utarayan is when I mean basically from June through December the sun's position in the sky starts shifting slowly southwards and the days are getting shorter and then from December to June it starts shifting northward again and the days start getting longer which is like a time for celebration so um that is utarayan right December yes so why do we celebrate in January when 21st December mber is when uttarayan starts right wait so srant is not uttarayan

1m 19s srant is uttarayan but we celebrate it on the wrong date that's what we are going to find out today right but before that I need to explain what the word srant means right okay so you know that there are 12 zodiacs right the ancient people they looked at the sky and they wanted to divide it into 12 parts because of 12 months so what they did was they sliced up the sky right into slice called a zodiac right. So in Indian it is like m ra and all of that right now and they were also pretty good at tracking the position of sun and moon and the planets in the different zodiacs.

1m 59s Correct. Correct. So over the course of a year the sun makes a 360° circle around the background of the stars the firmament as it is called. Correct. Yeah. So now there are these 12 zodiacs and there are these imaginary lines separating each zodiac. So when the sun crosses one of those lines from one zodiac to the other that is called a sranti. Okay. Yes. Cranti means actually pushing or moving. Okay. So revolution is but really not revolution it's pushing. Okay. So sranti is transition. Yeah. But the sun is not the English sun. It is right.

2m 42s Notice though that a sranti happens 12 times a year, right? In fact, some Indian calendars use scrantis to count months. Okay? I mean, we think of Indian calendars as lunar calendars, right? Because that's what the north Indian calendars are based on. But south Indian calendars, I mean Tamil and Malalam calendars are based on scranti. So they are solar calendars, right? A month starts with a sranti and uh they don't need an adikmas. They don't need a leap year. Yeah. Because the sun basically travels 12 zodiacs in the whole of a year. So they don't need any ad whatever.

3m 21s Exactly. Uh and in fact uh you know Orisa, Assam etc. West Bengal they do an even more complicated thing. They have a combination of lunar calendar and solar calendar that I will not get into. But basically the point is that scranti is a way of dividing the year into 12 parts based on the 12 zodiacs essentially 12 equal parts based on the zodiac. Yeah. Right. So sranti doesn't mean uttaran right. So why are we celebrating the one in January? Fairly simple. It is the sankranti that happens after the uttarayan right and uttarayan is a good thing because that's sort of from this day on the days are going to get longer the sun is going to

4m 08s be out much more so you know we are kind of uh celebrating that correct the sranti we celebrate is called the makar sranti for the reason that this is transition of sun into the makar zashi yeah okay yeah but wait day is getting longer We'll need to come back to that. Just put a pin in that. Go on. So, it goes into Makar the zodiac sign. So, by the way, I mean the reason Srantis are important is that because for some calendars, they're the beginning of a month, right?

4m 40s Can you guess why the Tamil, Malalam, etc. calendars have a new year sometime in April? Because that's where the sun transitions into m and mesh is considered like the beginning of the zodiac, right? Yes. Mesh Aries is considered the beginning of the zodiac. Can you guess why? I I don't know. It is the first scranti after the spring uh equinox, right? So you know March 21st is the time when the days are equal. So that pretty much is the beginning of spring, right? So the first sranti the two months after that is spring and that's why our year starts on the sranti after uh that date right so that's why it's in April sometime yeah the entire confusion basically

5m 32s stems from this this this mixture of solar and lunar calendars mixture of looking at the sun and the moon and trying to you know figure out a coordinated system of time to measure the passage of time across a year across one revolution around the sun but okay that explains Hence why we celebrate Makar Sranti but why is Makar Sranti on different dates still every year because so I mean if you have noticed sometimes it is on 14th January sometimes it is on 15th January. Yeah. Again, once you think about it, the reason is fairly simple. Okay.

6m 07s The scranti, the crossing over of the sun into the zodiac is a very specific point in the sky, imaginary point. Correct. Correct? So that happens at exactly the same time every year, right? But now imagine the sun. Okay? And now the earth, the sun is here exactly. That's when it crosses over into Makar. Now when the earth goes around the sun and it comes back when it has finished one year the earth has done an extra 1/4 rotation because the year is 365.25 25 days. Correct. Correct.

6m 47s So the next Makar Sankranti is going to be 6 hours later next year. Right? So if it is on uh you know 14th January 9:30 a.m. this year going to be 6 hours later at 3:30 p.m. And then the next year it is going to be 6 hours later again. 9:30 p.m. Right. Yeah. And you know if this kept happening it would keep shifting 6 hours ahead and it would keep going further ahead. But what happens every four years? leap year. Leap year. So then it shifts one whole day back, right? So that's why it goes forward, forward, forward, forward, back.

7m 24s Yeah. But typically it is 2 days on 14th and 2 days on 15th. What how is that makes sense? Because then you have to have three days, no of 14th and then one day of 15. Correct. So basically what happens is that 9:30 a.m. 14th January, 3:30 p.m. 14th January. 9:30 p.m. is after sunset. So that is counted in the next day as far as our titi is concerned. All right. 9:30 p.m. means it kind of makes sense to put it on the next date available. Okay. So that explains the 14th and 15th uh different date of Srant.

7m 57s But then you said that Uttar happens on 21st of December. Srant is 14th of January. That's a gap of 25 days. Yeah. Right. To explain that we need to first understand why does utaran dua happen at all. Right. So let's say this is the earth okay and this is the earth's axis and the earth's axis is tilted by 23 and a2° everybody knows that okay I'm just going to hold this pen up indicating this is the axis of the earth okay now the reason we have utran and and dakshinayan is that if there is a guy standing here and his head is pointing this way so straight up in the sky is here the sun

8m 39s is a little to the south of straight But when the earth has gone all the way around 6 months later now this guy is standing here and the sun is to the north right that is why we get uttarayan and dakshina right and when the tilt this is the axis of rotation when the tilt is maximum away from the sun that's when we get the most south and after this point on the sun is going to start shifting towards the north toward the north in fact this is March.

9m 12s At this point, uh the guy's head is pointed straight at the sun if you will notice. Right. Correct. Okay. Now, the problem with the earth's axis of rotation is that itself is rotating. If you have ever seen a spinning top Yeah. and you touch it a little bit, any disturbance and it causes the top while spinning it goes like this. Right? The same thing is happening with earth. It is spinning like this. But this spin is itself spinning spinning. Okay. And this happens very slowly which the ancients did not know about.

9m 47s Let us try to understand what happens when this the axis itself changes direction. Okay. At this point this is 21st December. Mhm. Okay. This is the earth maximum tilted away from the sun. And at that time when you look at the sun and when you look at what is behind you notice that this is where Makar is. Okay. So this is the line separating the previous zodiac from Makar. Correct. So right when the earth passes like this that's when the sun is crossing into Makar. Correct.

10m 22s And about 2,000 years ago or 1800 years ago this used to happen on 21st December. Okay. Okay. So they celebrated Makar Sranti on 21st December because that was the shortest day. Correct. But then over a thousand years the tilt changed right it's going like this. So tilt changed. Now you will notice that the this is not the maximum tilt away from the sun. Correct. Okay. For maximum tilt away from the sun you have to be here. Oh a little before. Right. So now notice if the earth is going around like this maximum tilt happens here because of the precession of the axis of the orbit.

11m 06s Correct? And now this is December 21st. But notice that now the sun is is not Yeah. It's before Makar. It has not yet reached Makar. So now 25 days later is when sun actually enters Makar. Oh. So what happened is the following that over a period of 1800 years the procession of the earth caused the uh southernmost point Uttarayan to happen earlier and earlier and earlier but the southernmost point is always December 21st because our calendar hasn't designed like that. Correct. Right. But a as a result the date of Makar Sranti kept shifting forward. And the way it works is that every 70 or 71 years the date of Makar Sranti shifts forward by one day. And this will keep

12m 08s happening. Okay. And after 26,000 years the date will have shifted entirely all the way around the calendar. I mean there will be a time when Makar Sanranti will be happening in August right but after 26,000 years we will be back to 21st December. Yeah. So in a lifetime you get to experience Makarasanti on probably three different dates 14 15 and then maybe 16th also of January. Yes. The young ones. The young ones. No also when we become old man probably. Who knows? I might still get to live 71 years.

12m 43s You never know. All right. Uh I I knew that the earth's precession uh happened the earth's axis precessed but I didn't realize that that was also connected to the makasranti date everything related with the zodiac shifts forward by one day because of this now we are in a position to explain the new year right they wanted new year to be the first day of spring the first day which was where the day was longer than the night which is March 22nd M but again you know they decided that around 200 AD or so and then over 1800 years that date shifted forward by 20 days and that's why most of our New Year's days uh are in April instead of

13m 30s being on March 22nd. Correct. The Indian New Year days the Ugadi and all of those Ugadi in Canada. Also another interesting thing about the tilt is the following right now this is we are rotating like this which means all the stars here will be going around but the star which is here the north star the pole star pole star it stays fixed in place right correct but now if this shifts that is also going to change that is going to change so that has happened right uh I mean right now uh the alpha urs minorus uh is the pole star right but from 1700 BC to 300 AD there were two other stars called Kochab and Furkad and they were

14m 17s actually the twin pole stars in those days and this thing being our pole star is a current thing later on it will shift to something else so that also is explained by that is actually how I knew about the procession of the axis but I didn't realize that that also connected with Makar Sranti in this manner so essentially trying to calculate and map the passage of time is why this entire shifting of dates constantly between the Gregorian and Indian calendars and even in Indian various Indian calendars happens yeah see think about is there are three different things right because on a day-to-day basis just looking up at the moon's phase is a very useful way to

14m 59s track time over a period of a month correct but over a period of a year uh you want to track time based on the seasons, shortest day, longest day because that is what determines agricultural decisions. Right? So that's why uh everything is around the earth going around the sun and being maximum tilt away, right? But the absolute value of earth around the sun without taking the tilt is a slightly different duration. Right? And that is what causes all of these shifts. Yeah. And procession was also not something that they could easily detect back in that day because if it takes a whole 71 years to process by one day worth of access to it then it was it was not going to be easy

15m 49s to understand that maybe I mean it's it's very fascinating the way it is. I still don't know why Makarranti is associated with your Tuls and your kite flying and all of that. I mean we don't really know the reasons for that. Historical record doesn't say anything but we can speculate right in the Diwali episode we talked about how people take existing rituals or things that are happening seasonally and then attach it to the nearest festival that you're celebrating right so I can imagine that eating tul is that okay this is now the peak of winter so you should be eating calorie dense foods right and that is eating tul and oh there is this festival that we want to

16m 32s celebrate. How should we celebrate? Well, let's eat extra tilg today, right? Another thing is that okay, it is winter. The days are starting to get longer uh now. Maybe we should try spending more time in the sun. So, uh let's play kites, right? So, that's something you want to do in January, February, etc. And again, attach that to the nearest festival. Yeah. I mean, some traditions just get uh formed because uh it's conducive for that tradition to get formed. So overall what I wanted to say is that scranti of course is maker sranti it is entry of the sun into makar and every four years the date changes because of the leap year thing correct

17m 16s but every 71 years it shifts forward by one I mean it started off like around 1800 years ago as being the celebration of uttarayan so December 21st but then because of the precision of the earth's axis it has shifted and now another 24,000 years it'll come back to actual 21st December right the big point that I wanted to make is that all of this date shifting in especially in the Indian calendar seems very random but when you look at it and when you understand it from an astronomical perspective there is a lot of elegant logic there yeah and the elegant logic is what the ancients uh used when constructing these things called horoscopes that you may have

18m 06s heard about and if you strongly believe in horoscopes then I strongly urge you to check out the episode we did on the entire concept of jot shastra you're going to hate us for this but uh you're probably also going to love us for this go check it out and let us know what you think about that and uh while you do that also why not subscribe to the WhatsApp community that we've created where we discuss this and a lot of other things. Good fun we are having in that community. Shriant Naven, Future IQ