Holī is the spring festival of colours, kept the morning after the Holikā fire of Phālguna Pūrṇimā. Its play of gulāl and coloured water is rooted, in Vraj tradition, in the colour games of Kṛṣṇa with Rādhā and the gopīs. As a dark child in Gokula, Kṛṣṇa is said to have asked Yaśodā why Rādhā was fair and he was dark, and she laughingly told him to colour Rādhā's face any shade he liked. That playful colouring became the festival's central custom, and the day now stands for the joy of spring and the loosening of everyday reserve. How the day is fixed: Holī is kept on the day after Phālguna Pūrṇimā, the morning after Holikā Dahan. Some regions follow their own Holī rule, but the day after the full moon is the common reckoning. Keep in mind: The day is Phālguna Kṛṣṇa Pratipadā in the amānta reckoning and Caitra Kṛṣṇa Pratipadā in the pūrṇimānta reckoning, so the two month names describe the same morning. In Bengal and Odisha the colour day is Dol Pūrṇimā itself, one day earlier. This year: The 2026 date shown here is worked out from sunrise at the place you chose, so in another city the same day can fall a day earlier or later. Colour play: From morning, friends, families and neighbours smear gulāl on one another and drench each other with coloured water. Sweets are shared and the play usually winds down by midday. Holī in Vraj: Barsana and Nandgaon, the villages of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, keep Lāṭhmār Holī in the days before the festival. Women of Barsana playfully beat the visiting men of Nandgaon with sticks while the men shield themselves, and the temples of Vṛndāvan extend the colour play over several days. Worth remembering: Holikā Dahan, the bonfire on the night of the full moon, and Dol Pūrṇimā, the swing festival of Bengal and Odisha on the full moon itself, are separate observances from the colour day. Raṅgapañcamī, five days later in Mahārāṣṭra, is a separate colour day as well. Regional forms carry different names and emphases. Bengal and Odisha keep Dol Pūrṇimā with a swing procession of Kṛṣṇa's mūrti, tied in Vaiṣṇava tradition to Caitanya Mahāprabhu's birth on that tithi, Mahārāṣṭra follows Holī with a larger colour day at Raṅgapañcamī, Goa keeps the season as Śigmo with processions and folk dance, and Gujarat sends thousands of pilgrims on foot to Dakor and Dwarka. Whatever the local form, the surest guide is the way the elders of one's own house have kept the day.
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