Thai Ponggal is a harvest festival celebrated by Tamils in India and in Sri Lanka. Ponggal coincides with the festival Makara Sankranthi celebrated throughout India. Ponggal in Tamil means boiling or spill over. The boiling over of milk in a clay pot symbolizes material abundance for the household.

The festival is traditionally intended to thank the sun god and farm livestock that helped create the material abundance.  - The Sri Lankan -