The sun

On one hand, there is Pongal. On the other, there is Lì Chūn (立春), or Jip Chūn as we Penang Hokkien folk call it. Two festivals from different cultures, thousands of miles apart, yet bound by the same denominator: the Sun. Let me elaborate.

Every year without fail, the Sun traces the same invisible journey across the sky. It never rushes, never hesitates. It advances by roughly one degree a day, completing its 360-degree journey in a little over 365 days. Long before calendars, clocks or even written history, farmers in India and China learned independently to read this slow walk of light. Out of that observation were born Pongal and Li Chun.

In the Tamil world, the crucial moment for Pongal comes when the Sun reaches a particular point in its yearly path, one that later Indian astronomy would call Makara Saṅkrānti, coinciding with the Sun’s entry into the zodiac segment known as Capricorn. It almost always falls on the 14th of January, though in 2026 it occurs on the 15th. That is why Pongal is so steady on the calendar while most other Indian festivals drift with the Moon. Pongal does not wait for a lunar phase. It looks straight at the Sun.

For people whose lives were shaped by the soil, this marked the turning point of winter. The Sun, which had been sinking lower in the sky since June, reached its lowest point at the December solstice. By Makara Saṅkrānti, it had already gathered enough strength to begin its northward climb. The days would lengthen. The earth would stir. And so the milk was boiled, the rice sweetened and the Sun thanked for returning.

China mapped the same solar journey, but instead of zodiac signs it divided the circle into 24 equal segments, each fifteen degrees wide, known as the solar terms. They are not festivals in the modern sense but seasonal markers with names such as Lesser Cold, Greater Cold, Coming of Spring, Rain Water, Awakening of Worms and et cetera.

When Pongal arrives in mid-January, the Chinese calendar is passing from the Lesser Cold (小寒) solar term to the Greater Cold (大寒). The deepest chill of winter usually comes around the 20th of January. While the Tamil farmer senses the Sun turning homeward, the Chinese farmer feels winter tightening its grip. They are reading the same sky, only from different angles.

Forty-five solar degrees later, the Sun reaches 315 degrees. The Chinese name for this moment is Li Chun, the Coming of Spring. It usually falls around the fourth of February, when frost may still linger in northern China. Yet in Chinese metaphysics, this is the true start of the new year. A child born before Li Chun belongs to the old zodiac animal even if Chinese New Year has already been celebrated. The Moon may start the festivities, but it is the Sun that shifts destiny.

Seen together, the story becomes seamless. After the solstice, the Sun begins its slow return northward. Around the 14th of January, Tamil homes boil rice in new pots and cry out “Pongal, Pongal!” Around the 20th, Chinese almanacs mark the depth of winter. And around the fourth of February, it's Li Chun. Spring has begun, not in temperature, but in truth.

Pongal does not correspond to Chinese New Year. It corresponds to the Sun itself, just as Li Chun does. They are not parallel festivals but points along the same solar year, fixed by the geometry of the heavens. What appears to be cultural difference is really perspective: the Tamils give thanks for the Sun’s return while the Chinese declare that spring has begun.

Every January and February, unnoticed by most of us, the Sun retells this story of celestial degrees — 270°, 300° and 315° — and two civilisations, thousands of miles apart, continue to mark its passage in their own way.