ਮਾਘੀਮਾਘੀ

Maghi is the festival of the first day of Magh, the Punjabi month that begins in mid January, and it is kept across Punjab as the morning after Lohri: a day of early bathing, charity and new beginnings, as the sun turns north and winter starts to loosen. For Sikhs, one town gives the day its deepest meaning. At Sri Muktsar Sahib, Maghi is a day of remembrance, when the largest gathering of the Punjabi winter honours forty men who came back from a mistake, fought, and were forgiven.

What is Maghi?

Maghi takes its name from Magh, the month it opens. It is the Punjabi observance of Makar Sankranti, the sun's entry into Capricorn and the start of its northward journey, marked across India on the same morning under many names. The festival was already old when Guru Amar Das Ji, the third Guru, listed Maghi among the days Sikhs should gather and sing kirtan. Across Punjab the day is kept with an early dip in a river, canal, pond or sarovar, with charity, and with the foods of the season: khichdi with lentils, raw sugarcane and jaggery, and above all rauh di kheer, rice cooked slowly in sugarcane juice the evening before and eaten cold on Maghi morning with curd mixed with red chilli.

Why do Sikhs gather at Muktsar on Maghi?

In 1705, during the long siege of Anandpur Sahib, forty Sikhs of the Majha, worn down by hunger, signed a bedava, a written renunciation, disowning ਗੁਰੂ ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਸਿੰਘ ਜੀ ਨੇ, and went home. Shamed and stirred, above all by ਮਾਈ ਭਾਗੋ ਜੀ, who rode out to call them back, they returned, and on 29 December 1705 they met the pursuing Mughal force at the pool of Khidrana. Almost all of them died there, delaying the pursuit and saving the Guru.

The Guru reached the battlefield, and found one man, Bhai Maha Singh Ji, still breathing. At his request the Guru tore up the bedava, and declared the forty to be mukte, liberated ones: the Forty Mukte. Their bodies were cremated the next day, the first of Magh, and the pool of Khidrana took the name it still carries: Muktsar, the pool of liberation. The town is Sri Muktsar Sahib, and the day of the cremation is the day Maghi is kept in their memory.

What happens at Mela Maghi?

The fair at Muktsar, Mela Maghi, also called the Shaheedi Jor Mela, runs for three days around Maghi and draws pilgrims from across Punjab and the diaspora. Before dawn, in the coldest hour of the year, devotees bathe in the sacred sarovar of ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਟੁੱਟੀ ਗੰਢੀ ਸਾਹਿਬ, the shrine that marks where the bedava was torn, and then visit the town's battle shrines in turn: Shahid Ganj Sahib, where the martyrs were cremated, Tambu Sahib, and Tibbi Sahib, the sandy ridge from which the Guru watched the battle.

Gurdwaras hold an end to end recital of the Guru Granth Sahib and religious diwans, as they do on Maghi across Punjab, and a great mahalla, a procession of pilgrims from the main shrine to Gurdwara Tibbi Sahib, closes the fair. Langars feed the crowds day and night, and alongside the remembrance, fairs, markets and folk gatherings fill the town. The mood, though, sets Maghi apart from Lohri's night of song: this is a mela of memory, gratitude and return.

How is Maghi kept beyond Muktsar?

Most Punjabis meet Maghi quietly. The day begins with bathing, traditionally in open water before sunrise, and with visits to the gurdwara or temple. Charity is part of the day, in food, clothes and money, and fairs are held in many towns. In the farming year Maghi has practical weight too: across Punjab it is observed as the start of the new agricultural year, a time when land leases and accounts are settled and work turns toward the spring. In the hills of Himachal Pradesh the festival is Magha Ra Saza, a month given to rest and to the worship of Agni while the fields sleep, and in Jammu it is kept as Uttarain.

When is Maghi celebrated?

Maghi falls on the first day of the month of ਮਾਘ, usually 14 January, the morning after ਲੋਹੜੀ and the day of Makar Sankranti across India. The date is fixed by the solar calendar, so it barely moves; the battle it remembers was fought on 29 December 1705, and the cremation of the Forty Mukte on the first of Magh is what binds the martyrs' memory to this exact point of the year, the turn from the darkest weeks toward the light.