Vedic Seasons (Ritu) 2026

Knowing your current Ritu helps you eat right, stay healthy, and plan important events. Each of the six Vedic seasons carries specific Ayurvedic guidance (called Ritucharya) for diet, exercise, and daily routine. Festivals, weddings, and agricultural activities are traditionally timed around Ritu transitions. If you follow Ayurveda, practice yoga, or simply want to live in harmony with nature's rhythm, the Ritu calendar is your starting point.

Ritu (Sanskrit: ऋतु) is the six-season system of the traditional Hindu calendar. Unlike the Western four-season model, this system recognizes a distinct monsoon season (Varsha) and separates winter into two phases — pre-winter (Hemanta) and deep winter (Shishira). The six Ritus are: Vasanta (Spring), Grishma (Summer), Varsha (Monsoon), Sharad (Autumn), Hemanta (Pre-Winter), and Shishira (Winter). Each spans roughly 60 days.

The concept of Ritu runs deep in Indian culture — from Ayurvedic health prescriptions to classical music (Ragas assigned to seasons), poetry (Kalidasa's Ritusamhara), and the scheduling of major festivals. Each season has distinct characteristics that guide what to eat, how to exercise, and which activities are most beneficial.

The dates shown here follow the traditional Hindu solar calendar (Saura Mana), where each Ritu spans two solar months. Shishira begins with Magha (around January 14, coinciding with Makar Sankranti), and each subsequent Ritu follows in sequence. This system has been used for millennia to organize agricultural cycles, festivals, and seasonal health practices across the Indian subcontinent.

These traditional dates are approximate and remain consistent from year to year. The actual climatic onset of each season varies by region — monsoon arrives earlier on the western coast than in the plains, and winter sets in sooner in the Himalayas. The Ritu calendar provides a standardized reference that communities across India share, even as local weather patterns differ.

The six-Ritu system is among the oldest calendrical concepts in Indian civilization, documented in the Rig Veda (~1500 BCE) and the Atharva Veda. The Vedanga Jyotisha provides rules for seasonal transitions. The sage Charaka's Charaka Samhita devotes an entire chapter to Ritucharya, showing how deeply the seasonal system was integrated with medicine. Kalidasa's celebrated poem Ritusamhara ('Garland of Seasons,' ~4th century CE) describes all six seasons with exquisite poetic detail.

The cultural influence of Ritu extends across music, art, and agriculture. Classical Indian music assigns Ragas to specific seasons — Raag Megh evokes the monsoon, Raag Bahar captures spring. Agricultural calendars have historically organized planting and harvesting cycles around Ritu transitions. Even today, traditional farming communities in rural India time their agricultural operations by the Vedic seasonal calendar, demonstrating the system's enduring practical relevance.