Baisakhi (Vaisakhi), on the first day of the solar month of Vaisakha — usually 13 or 14 April — is at once the great harvest festival of Punjab and the day the Khalsa was born. For farmers it marks the cutting of the ripe rabi wheat, the reward of the year's labour; for Sikhs it is the anniversary of 1699, when Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa and gave the community its form.

Because it is a solar festival, tied to the sun's entry into Mesha (Aries), its date barely moves from year to year — unlike the lunar festivals. The same solar turn is kept across India under other names: Vishu in Kerala, Puthandu in Tamil Nadu, Pohela Boishakh in Bengal, Bihu in Assam.

It is a festival of the open field and the gurudwara rather than the household shrine — of bhangra and gidda in the wheat, of the nagar kirtan through the streets, and of langar shared by all.

Baisakhi's meaning is historical rather than mythic, but its imagery runs deep. On this day in 1699 at Anandpur Sahib, Guru Gobind Singh called for a head; five men rose, one by one, offering their lives. These became the Panj Pyare, the Five Beloved, and through them the Guru instituted the Khalsa — the pure — administering amrit (nectar stirred with a double-edged khanda) and the five kakars. In one act a scattered community was given a single, unmistakable form.

Vaisakhi was already an old solar and harvest festival when it took on its Sikh meaning. Guru Amar Das, the third Guru, had gathered Sikhs at Vaisakhi and Diwali as community assemblies; it was into that established tradition that Guru Gobind Singh chose Vaisakhi 1699 for the founding of the Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib. Later the day carried political weight too — the Jallianwala Bagh gathering of 13 April 1919 was a Baisakhi crowd. Its layers — agrarian, spiritual, historical — sit one atop another.

For Sikhs the authority of the day rests in the Guru Granth Sahib, before which the sangat gathers, and in the account of the founding of the Khalsa. Hukamnama (a reading from the Guru Granth Sahib) is taken, and the day is kept in kirtan and the remembrance of the Gurus rather than in any Puranic rite.

Baisakhi is a solar marker: the sun's entry into Mesha fixes it near 13–14 April every year, so unlike the lunar festivals it stays with the season. That season is the rabi harvest — the wheat is cut and threshed, and the festival is, at root, the community's shared relief and thanksgiving at the year's grain being safely in.

On Vaisakhi of 1699, Guru Gobind Singh gathered the Sikhs at Anandpur Sahib and, drawing his sword, asked who would give his head for his faith. A silence, then one man stepped forward. The Guru led him into a tent and returned with a blood-red blade, and asked again. Five times a man rose and followed; five times the Guru returned alone with the reddened sword.

Then he brought all five out, alive and robed as one. These were the Panj Pyare. The Guru prepared amrit, stirring water and sugar with a khanda while reciting the sacred verses, and administered it to the five — and then, kneeling, asked them to administer it to him in turn. Guru and disciple drank from the same bowl. The Khalsa was born, and with it a people who would carry the five kakars and the name Singh and Kaur.