Vaisakhਵੈਸਾਖ

Vaisakh (ਵੈਸਾਖ) is the second month of the Punjabi year, running from 14 April to 14 May, with 31 days. It is one of the great months of the Sikh year: on 1 Vaisakh, in 1699, Guru Gobind Singh Ji founded the Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib, and Vaisakhi remains the biggest festival of the Punjabi spring. In the fields, Vaisakh is the wheat harvest itself, the month the whole rabi season has been building towards.

Vaisakh in the calendar

Vaisakh is month 2 of 12, between Chet and Jeth. Its sangrand, 1 Vaisakh, falls on 14 April every year in the fixed Nanakshahi calendar, and the day is Vaisakhi. The month has 31 days and ends on 14 May. Within the month, on 5 Vaisakh (18 April), falls the parkash of Guru Angad Dev Ji, the second Guru. Vaisakhi has always been a solar festival: even in the old Bikrami reckoning it was a fixed solar celebration, the spring harvest festival of northern India, long before it became the birthday of the Khalsa.

Vaisakhi and the founding of the Khalsa

On Vaisakhi day in 1699, at Anandpur Sahib, Guru Gobind Singh Ji called the Sikhs together and founded the Khalsa, the community of the initiated. He asked for volunteers ready to give their heads; five men, remembered as the Panj Pyare, the Five Beloved Ones, stepped forward, and the Guru initiated them with amrit, then took amrit from their hands himself. The Khalsa was given its discipline, its articles of faith and the names Singh and Kaur. Vaisakhi is still kept at Anandpur Sahib and at gurdwaras everywhere with nagar kirtans, amrit sanchar ceremonies and gatherings of the sangat. Our Vaisakhi page tells the festival's story in full.

Guru Nanak Dev Ji's Parkash: the two dates

Vaisakh also holds a question Sikhs often ask: was Guru Nanak Dev Ji born in this month? Most of the janamsakhis, the traditional life stories, say he was born in the month of Baisakh (Vaisakh) in Samvat 1526, that is, April 1469. His recorded age at his passing, 70 years, 5 months and 7 days, counted back from Assu 1539, also points to a Vaisakh birth. On this evidence, Pal Singh Purewal's original Nanakshahi calendar fixed the Parkash Gurpurab on 1 Vaisakh, 14 April, the same day as Vaisakhi itself. But the Gurpurab the community loves and keeps is the full moon of Kattak, Kartik Purnima, celebrated at Nankana Sahib since at least 1868, and that is where the SGPC's current calendar keeps it: in Nanakshahi 558 it falls on 9 Magghar, 24 November 2026. Jugti presents both honestly: Vaisakh holds the birth month by the historical record, and Kattak Purnima holds the celebration.

The wheat harvest

Vaisakh is harvest. The wheat that turned gold in Chet is now cut, by combine harvester across most of Punjab and still by sickle in places, then threshed and carried to the grain markets. It is the year's hardest and happiest work: the rabi crop, sown in autumn, pays for the year in these weeks. Vaisakhi began as the harvest festival of this season, a thanksgiving for the crop, and that older joy still runs through the day, in fairs, bhangra and the first mangoes appearing as the heat builds.

Vaisakh in the Barah Maha

Guru Arjan Dev Ji's Barah Maha turns from Chet's joy to longing: ਵੈਸਾਖਿ ਧੀਰਨਿ ਕਿਉ ਵਾਢੀਆ ਜਿਨਾ ਪ੍ਰੇਮ ਬਿਛੋਹੁ ੥ In Vaisakh, how can the bride be patient, she who is separated in love? Having forgotten the Lord, Guru Arjan Dev Ji says, the soul clings to Maya, the deceiver, and nothing that fades, neither children, nor spouse, nor wealth, goes with her in the end. Guru Nanak Dev Ji's Tukhari Barah Maha sees the same month with a gentler eye: ਵੈਸਾਖੁ ਭਲਾ ਸਾਖਾ ਵੇਸ ਕਰੇ ੥ Vaisakh is beautiful, when the branches dress themselves in new leaf. In both poems the lesson is the same: the loveliest month of the year is only truly lovely for the soul that finds its Beloved in it.

When is Vaisakh?

Vaisakh begins on 14 April and ends on 14 May. It has 31 days. Its first day, 1 Vaisakh, is Vaisakhi, the festival of the Khalsa's founding and of the wheat harvest.

What happened on 1 Vaisakh?

Two of the greatest events of the Sikh year. In 1699, Guru Gobind Singh Ji founded the Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib, initiating the Panj Pyare and giving the Panth its enduring form. And by the historical evidence of the janamsakhis, 1 Vaisakh is also the birth date of Guru Nanak Dev Ji in 1469, which is why the original Nanakshahi calendar fixed his Parkash Gurpurab on this day, even though the community's great celebration is kept at Kattak Purnima.