Chittirai Pournami 2018

Chittirai Pournami (சித்ரா பௌர்ணமி), the full moon of the Tamil month Chittirai, is the day of Chitragupta, who keeps the record of every soul's deeds for Yama. Devotees pray to him for a clean account, and his temple at Kanchipuram holds its great festival.

At Tiruvannamalai hundreds of thousands walk the fourteen-kilometre girivalam round the holy hill of Arunachala under the full moon. In Madurai the day falls in the Chithirai festival, when Kallazhagar comes down to enter the Vaigai.

Families gather on terraces, beaches and riverbanks to eat nila soru, the moonlit meal of chitrannam, under the brightest full moon of the year.