In brief
The six ritus divide the Indian year into six seasons of two lunar months each: Vasanta, Grishma, Varsha, Sharad, Hemanta and Shishira. The scheme gives the monsoon a season of its own, organises the festival year and Kalidasa’s Ritusamhara, and underlies Ayurveda’s seasonal regimen, ritucharya.
Most of the world divides the year into four seasons. The Indian tradition divides it into six ritus, each two lunar months long, and the division fits the subcontinent’s northern plains far better than spring, summer, autumn and winter ever could. Vasanta, spring, covers Chaitra and Vaishakha; Grishma, the hot season, Jyeshtha and Ashadha; Varsha, the rains, Shravana and Bhadrapada; Sharad, the clear post-monsoon autumn, Ashvin and Kartika; Hemanta, the cool pre-winter, Margashirsha and Pausha; and Shishira, the cold late winter, Magha and Phalguna. The monsoon, which a four-season calendar has no room for, gets a season of its own.
The ritus organise far more than the weather report. The great festivals sit in them: Holi at the turn into Vasanta, Navratri, Dussehra and Diwali in the bright weeks of Sharad, Makara Sankranti in Shishira. Poetry grew around them; the Ritusamhara, a cycle of poems traditionally attributed to Kalidasa, moves through all six seasons, one canto each, describing how each changes the land, the animals and the lovers who live through it. In the Gita’s tenth chapter, when Krishna names the finest instance of each category as himself, he says that among seasons he is kusumakara, the flower-bearer: spring.
Ayurveda gives the six seasons a medical structure. The Charaka Samhita groups them into two halves that match the sun’s two journeys described in the previous part. During the northern course, through Shishira, Vasanta and Grishma, the sun is said to draw strength out of living things, adana; during the southern course, through Varsha, Sharad and Hemanta, the moon returns it, visarga. Each season then has its ritucharya, a recommended regimen of food, activity and sleep, adjusted to what the season is doing to the body. Much of it matches common sense about eating lighter in heat and heavier in cold; its more specific claims have not been tested in modern clinical trials and should be taken as traditional guidance rather than established medicine.
The scheme is also regional, and honest use of it admits that. The six ritus describe the Gangetic plain well; they fit Kerala, Kashmir or the northeast much less exactly, and local calendars have always adapted. What the ritus preserve, wherever they are kept, is a way of marking time that begins with what the land and the body actually undergo, rather than with an abstract division of the year. It is the same instinct that began the ladder of time with a blink and a breath: time as something lived first and counted second.
Questions people ask
Vasanta (spring, Chaitra and Vaishakha), Grishma (summer, Jyeshtha and Ashadha), Varsha (monsoon, Shravana and Bhadrapada), Sharad (autumn, Ashvin and Kartika), Hemanta (pre-winter, Margashirsha and Pausha) and Shishira (late winter, Magha and Phalguna).
Two-month seasons fit the climate of the northern plains better than four, and in particular give the monsoon, Varsha, a season of its own. The scheme suits the Gangetic plain best and is adapted locally elsewhere.
Ritucharya is the Ayurvedic regimen of food, activity and sleep recommended for each ritu. The Charaka Samhita groups the seasons into adana and visarga halves. Much of it matches common sense, but its specific claims are traditional guidance rather than clinically tested medicine.
Holi marks the turn into Vasanta; Navratri, Dussehra and Diwali fall in Sharad; and Makara Sankranti falls in Shishira.
Part 23 of 30 — Series V: What Time Is Made Of
Series V: What Time Is Made OfThe Five KoshasIndexFAQThe Timeline