Baisakhi – The Harvest Festival – An Introduction

Baisakhi or Vaisakhi is an ancient harvest festival, a Sikh religious festival of Punjab.

Punjab here refers to the region that is defined by five waters or rivers and falls in India and Pakistan. These five waters are Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej and Beas. Here Punjab refers to a cultural demarcation, the reference to Punjab is not geographical.

The term Vaisakhi is a direct association with the Vaishakha period of April and May. This festival falls on the first day of the Baisakh month of the solar Nanakshahi calender which correlates to April 14 of the Gregorian calender.

Baisakhi is, foremost, a celebration of the Sikh new year. One of the most important Sikh holidays, this festival also commemorates laying the foundation of the Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib in 1699 by the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh.

Other Variations of The Festival
India, being an agrarian society has many parallel festive occasions with a similar basis. So, Baisakhi is celebrated as the beginning of a new solar year not only in Punjab but in many other places of India (with similar or different names) like Kerala, Orissa, West Bengal and in Nepal too. The Baisakhi festival also finds many regional variations in other Indian states namely Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Assam, Tripura, Tamil Nadu and across the borders as well (Pakistan and Sri Lanka).