Raksha Bandhan
Next: August 17, 2027
A thread tied with a promise.
The story
Where it comes from
Raksha Bandhan means 'the bond of protection'. It falls on the full-moon day of the Hindu month of Shravana, usually in August, and celebrates the bond between sisters and brothers. Protective threads are very old in Hindu tradition: the Atharvaveda, from about 1000 BCE, mentions one, and later texts name the Shravana full moon as the day to tie them. In one Puranic story, Indrani ties a protective band on the wrist of her husband, the god Indra. Over time the custom became the sibling festival kept across northern India and the Indian diaspora.
How it's celebrated
In a small ceremony, a sister ties a rakhi, a bracelet usually of red or yellow thread, on her brother's right wrist, and the two share sweets. Brothers who live far away often receive theirs by post. The custom has grown to include cousins, friends and classmates, so a rakhi can now mark any bond of care and protection, in the family or beyond it.
Did you know
- There is no set day to take a rakhi off: some brothers wear theirs until it wears out, while many in Maharashtra remove it 15 days later, at the farming festival of Pola.
- In Nepal the same full moon is Janai Purnima, when men who wear the sacred thread replace it and priests tie protective threads on Hindus and Buddhists alike.
- In 1905 the poet Rabindranath Tagore asked Hindus and Muslims in Bengal to tie rakhis on each other as a sign of unity.
The greeting
Happy Raksha Bandhan · रक्षाबंधन की शुभकामनाएँ
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