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50 free Vaisakhi trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Vaisakhi is two festivals in one. For Punjabi farmers it has always been the day the spring harvest comes in; for Sikhs it is the day in 1699 when Guru Gobind Singh created the Khalsa, the order whose initiates still carry its name and its symbols. The same mid-April sunrise opens the solar new year from Kerala and Tamil Nadu to Bengal, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. These 50 questions start with the 1699 gathering and what was asked of the first volunteers, then move through the Golden Temple, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919 and its long afterlife in British politics and Indian cinema, the nagar kirtan processions, gatka and bhangra, the foods served at every gurdwara, and the cousin new years that share the date. About a fifth are genuinely hard. Play it to see how much of the day's history you actually know, or print it for a classroom or community round.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What did Guru Gobind Singh, sword drawn, ask volunteers at the 1699 Vaisakhi gathering to sacrifice?
Their head
Their head: the Guru called for a volunteer willing to sacrifice his head, and the five who stepped forward one by one became the first members of the Khalsa.
Q 02Guru Arjan built the Golden Temple lower than the city around it to emphasise which virtue?
Humility
Humility: worshippers descend steps to reach the shrine, effacing the ego before meeting the Guru, and the scripture enthroned inside is open to all with no restrictions.
Q 03Which US rapper featured on the 2003 remix of Panjabi MC's bhangra hit 'Mundian To Bach Ke'?
Jay-Z
Jay-Z joined a 2003 remix that charted highly in North America and Australia; the original had already topped the singles charts in Italy and Wallonia and sold an estimated 10 million copies.
Q 04Which river goddess is believed to have descended from heaven on Vaisakhi, a day of ritual bathing?
Ganga
Ganga, the Ganges, is believed to have come down from Svarga on Vaisakhi, so Hindus bathe in sacred rivers, visit temples and give charity of water pitchers and seasonal fruit.
Q 05Whose 1801 coronation as Maharaja of the Sikh Empire was timed to coincide with Vaisakhi?
Ranjit Singh
Ranjit Singh was proclaimed Maharaja on 12 April 1801, with Sahib Singh Bedi, a descendant of the first guru, conducting the coronation that created a unified Sikh state.
Q 06Which future UK PM, then War Secretary, called the 1919 Amritsar massacre 'unutterably monstrous'?
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill condemned the shooting as 'unutterably monstrous', and on 8 July 1920 the House of Commons voted 247 to 37 against Dyer.
Q 07Who played the lead in 'Sardar Udham', the 2021 Shoojit Sircar film about avenging Jallianwala Bagh?
Vicky Kaushal
Vicky Kaushal won wide acclaim in a film that, delayed by the pandemic, skipped cinemas and premiered on Amazon Prime Video on 16 October 2021.
Q 08Which country fixed its national calendar so Pohela Boishakh, its new year, always falls on 14 April?
Bangladesh
Bangladesh fixed its national calendar so the new year always lands on 14 April, while India's West Bengal and Tripura mark it a day later in most years.
Q 09Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa in which Punjab town, set up by his father near the Sutlej?
Anandpur Sahib
Anandpur Sahib, the 'city of bliss' on the edge of the Shivalik Hills, was founded by the ninth guru and is where the last two gurus lived; it also hosts Hola Mohalla each spring.
Q 10Who leads a Vaisakhi nagar kirtan procession, robed in saffron ahead of the scripture's float?
The Panj Pyare
The Panj Pyare, five Sikhs standing for the first initiates of 1699, walk ahead of the float bearing the Guru Granth Sahib, with food handed out from floats that follow.
Q 11The city of Amritsar takes its name from the Amrit Sarovar, a Sanskrit phrase meaning what?
Pool of Nectar
Pool of Nectar refers to the sacred tank surrounding the Golden Temple's sanctum; the city is also famed for its food and for making chessboards and chess pieces.
Q 12At what age was Guru Gobind Singh made leader of the Sikhs in 1675, after his father's death?
Nine
Nine: the boy guru was the only son of Guru Tegh Bahadur and Mata Gujri, and he went on to found Paonta Sahib in 1685 and Damdama Sahib in 1705.
Q 13Which Kerala festival, named from Sanskrit for 'equal', falls on the same mid-April day as Vaisakhi?
Vishu
Vishu once marked the spring equinox, hence the name; it opens the month of Medam, the first of the Malabar solar calendar, on 14 or 15 April.
Q 21Vaisakhi celebrates the harvest of which crop season, whose Arabic-derived name means 'spring'?
Rabi
Rabi crops such as wheat and barley are sown in winter and reaped in spring across the subcontinent; the complementary kharif season follows.
Q 22Hindu Vaisakhi custom calls for daan (charity) of water pitchers, seasonal fruit and what else?
Hand fans
Hand fans, water pitchers and seasonal fruit make up the daan considered mandatory for the day, given alongside temple visits and bathing in sacred rivers.
Q 23One of India's biggest Vaisakhi fairs is held in which Uttarakhand town, also a Kumbh Mela site?
Haridwar
Haridwar hosts the Kumbh Mela every 12 years at Har Ki Pauri, the ghat where legend says drops of the elixir of immortality fell from a pitcher.
Q 14Gatka, the Sikh martial art shown off at Vaisakhi processions, simulates sword fighting with what?
Wooden sticks
Wooden sticks of 91 to 107 cm stand in for swords, paired with a shield called the phari; the name gatka may come from a Sanskrit word for 'mace'.
Q 15The Nishan Sahib, the Sikh flag, is washed each Vaisakhi with water and which other liquid?
Milk
Milk and water wash the flag every April, and the pole itself is wrapped in a fabric cover called a chola topped with a steel Khanda.
Q 16Which London district, known as 'Little Punjab', holds its Vaisakhi procession a week or two early?
Southall
Southall, in the borough of Ealing, had 20,843 Sikhs at the 2021 census, and its nagar kirtan falls on a Sunday a week or two before Vaisakhi itself.
Q 17Which British monarch visited Jallianwala Bagh in 1997 and stood in a 30-second silence there?
Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II paid her respects on 14 October 1997 during a state visit, a day after calling the massacre 'a distressing example' of a difficult shared past at a Delhi banquet; no apology was offered.
Q 18Which patriotic phrase accompanies the eternal flame at the Jallianwala Bagh memorial?
Vande Mataram
Vande Mataram, 'I bow to thee, Mother', frames the flame burning under a domed meditation area in the garden, which a committee bought in 1923 for 565,000 rupees.
Q 19Which Tamil new-year festival, opening the month of Chittirai, falls on the same day as Vaisakhi?
Puthandu
Puthandu follows the spring equinox and lands on or about 14 April, celebrated by the Tamil diaspora from Myanmar and South Africa to Canada.
Q 20Choul Chnam Thmey, a three-day holiday sharing Vaisakhi's solar new-year date, is celebrated where?
Cambodia
Cambodia's Khmer new year starts on 13 or 14 April, when the harvest is in and farmers enjoy the fruits of their labour before the rains arrive.
Q 24Which Sufi saint of Lahore is said to have laid the Golden Temple's foundation stone for Guru Arjan?
Mian Mir
Mian Mir belonged to the Qadiri order, and later sources read his invitation as a signal that the Sikh tradition welcomed people of every faith.
Q 25Which Afghan ruler had the Golden Temple blown up with gunpowder in 1762?
Ahmad Shah Durrani
Ahmad Shah Durrani, also called Abdali, had first attacked Amritsar and desecrated the shrine in 1757, and the Sikhs rebuilt it after each assault.
Q 26Guru Gobind Singh prepared the first amrit in 1699 by stirring sweetened water with a sword in what?
An iron bowl
An iron bowl held the water and sugar, stirred with a double-edged khanda while scripture was recited, and the initiates drank it in turn.
Q 27Which trade, alongside farmer, shopkeeper and tailor, was among the first five initiated in 1699?
Barber
Barber was the trade of one of the five beloved ones, who came from as far apart as Lahore, Gujarat and Karnataka, making the new order pointedly caste-blind.
Q 28Which Punjabi folk dance is performed by female dancers to rhythmic clapping while elders sing?
Giddha
Giddha is the women's dance usually billed as bhangra's counterpart; it needs no dhol, the dancers clapping in a circle while a lead singer's boli is taken up by the ring.
Q 29The equal parts of flour, ghee and sugar in karah parshad, the gurdwara sweet, emphasise what?
Equality of men and women
Equality of men and women is written into the recipe, which also takes double the quantity of water; the halva is also called deg, literally 'cooking pot'.
Q 30Langar, the free meal served to all at Vaisakhi, was made a key institution by which third guru?
Amar Das
Amar Das required everyone, whatever their caste or class, to dine together, building on the kitchen the first guru had introduced around 1500.