Puthandu vs Ugadi: Why Tamil and Telugu New Year Fall on Different Days
In 2026, Telugu and Kannada families celebrated Ugadi on Thursday 19 March. Tamil families celebrated Puthandu, the Tamil New Year, on Tuesday 14 April — 26 days later. In 2027 the gap shrinks to a week: Ugadi on Wednesday 7 April, Puthandu again on 14 April. Both new years even begin a year with the same name — Parabhava in 2026, Plavanga in 2027 — so why don't they start on the same day? The short answer is that one calendar follows the Sun and the other follows the Moon. Our Tamil calendar 2026 and Telugu calendar 2026 pages show the result day by day; here's how it works.
Puthandu: the Sun enters Mesha
The Tamil calendar is solar (sauramana). Its year is the time the Sun takes to go once around the zodiac, measured against the stars, and each month begins on the day the Sun crosses into the next sidereal sign. Chithirai, the first month, begins when the Sun enters Mesha (Aries) — an event called Mesha Sankranti. Because a solar year is a fixed length, that crossing lands on almost the same Gregorian date every year: 14 April, occasionally the 13th or 15th depending on whether it happens before or after sunset.
The same moment is New Year for a surprising number of Indian (and South-East Asian) calendars: Vishu in Kerala, Baisakhi in Punjab, Bohag Bihu in Assam, Pohela Boishakh in Bengal and Bangladesh, and the new years of Odisha, Mithila, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia all fall in the same mid-April window. They are one astronomical event wearing many names.
Ugadi: the first new moon of spring
The Telugu and Kannada calendar is lunisolar (chandramana). Its months run from one new moon to the next — 29.5 days each — and the year begins with Chaitra Shukla Pratipada, the first lunar day after the new moon that falls while the Sun is in Meena (Pisces). Marathi Gudi Padwa falls on the same day for the same reason. (The month's name is still set by the Sun: whichever sign the Sun is in at the new moon decides it.)
Twelve lunar months add up to about 354 days — roughly 11 days short of a solar year. So if nothing were done, Ugadi would slide 11 days earlier every year and drift through every season, as the Islamic calendar's months do. Instead, roughly every 32½ months the calendar inserts an extra month, an adhika masa, whenever two new moons fall while the Sun is in the same sign. That keeps Ugadi in a window from mid-March to mid-April.
Why 2027's Ugadi is so late
2026 was a leap year in the lunar calendar. Two new moons fell while the Sun was in Vrishabha (Taurus), so the month from 17 May to 15 June 2026 became Adhika Jyeshtha, followed by the regular Jyeshtha. The Telugu year 2026–27 therefore has thirteen months and runs 384 days — which is why Ugadi jumps from 19 March 2026 to 7 April 2027, 19 days later in the Gregorian calendar. After 2027 it will start creeping earlier again by about 11 days a year until the next adhika month pushes it back.
Puthandu, meanwhile, simply returns on 14 April. The gap between the two new years is therefore anything from a few days to about a month, and it changes every year.
One cycle of names, two starting lines
Both calendars name years from the same 60-year cycle (Prabhava, Vibhava, Shukla…). In 2026 both entered the 40th year, Parabhava; in 2027 both enter the 41st, Plavanga. They simply cross into the new name on different days. The cycle is a Jupiter cycle in origin — five revolutions of Jupiter take almost exactly 60 years — though in practice the Tamil and Telugu calendars now step to the next name once a year, at their own new year, regardless of Jupiter.
A drift worth knowing about
Puthandu's 14 April isn't quite as fixed as it looks. The sidereal year the Tamil calendar counts is about 20 minutes longer than the tropical year our Gregorian calendar is built on, so over centuries the solar new year walks later through the Gregorian calendar — about one day every 70 years. Around 1,700 years ago, Mesha Sankranti fell close to the March equinox; today it is more than three weeks after it. That gap is the same 24° "ayanamsa" that separates Western and Vedic zodiac signs, explained on our astrology page.
Which one is "right"?
Neither — they answer different questions. A solar calendar is excellent for the farming year and the seasons; a lunar calendar is excellent for anything timed by the Moon, which is why even the Tamil calendar uses lunar tithis for Deepavali, Vinayagar Chathurthi and Karthigai Deepam. Most of India runs both at once. If you want to see them side by side, our live pages show tomorrow's Tamil date and tomorrow's Telugu tithi and masa for your own city — the same sky, read two ways.