Sunday
The Sun's day in the Western scheme, the Christian day of rest, and Surya's day in India, with the red of Sunday-born Thais.
Sunday is the Sun's day in Latin and in the Germanic languages, and the first day of the week in the Western planetary order. For Christians it is the Lord's Day, the day of the Resurrection and of rest. In Hindu practice it belongs to Surya. The Sun stands in each of them for light, vitality and rank.
The Sun in Western magic
In the planetary scheme Sunday belongs to the Sun, with gold, yellow and orange, the metal gold, and the qualities of health, success, clarity, authority and joy. The Sun's work in grimoires was often to do with favours from the powerful and with honour. Roman and Germanic names, dies Solis and Sunnandæg, show that the day was named for the Sun well before it became a Christian day. Early Christians adopted Sunday as a day of worship, and in 321 the Emperor Constantine made it a day of rest in the Roman Empire.
The day of rest
Sunday is the Lord's Day in Christian practice, kept with worship, a ban on heavy work in many traditions and the Sunday best. Folk belief added many rules: that washing, sewing or cutting the hair on a Sunday invited bad luck, and that a child born on a Sunday was fortunate, or in German-speaking regions a Sonntagskind who could see spirits and was lucky. These beliefs are local and unevenly recorded. Sunday trading laws, called blue laws in North America, show a long political history behind the day of rest.
Ravivar and Surya
In Hindu practice Sunday is Ravivar, or Adityavar, the day of Surya, the Sun, a god to whom water is offered at dawn, and who is greeted by the sequence of postures known as Surya Namaskar. Many people fast on Sunday, avoid salt, wear red and recite the Aditya Hridayam. The day is treated as favourable in astrology for matters of authority and health, though many people avoid beginning a journey in certain directions on particular days according to the older rules of the almanac.
Born on a Sunday
The Akan name for a boy born on Sunday is Kwasi, or Akwasi, and for a girl Esi. In Burma the Sunday-born belong to the garuda, and in Thailand the colour is red, the day of the Sun. In the English rhyme Sunday's child is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
Also part of it, and being written: Sunday (The day and its names.), Sun in astrology (The planetary ruler.), Lord's Day (The Christian day of rest.), Surya (The Hindu Sun god.), Thai calendar (The colours of the days.), Names of the days of the week (How the planets gave their names to the days.).
Written by the EveryJaadu desk with AI assistance. Customs differ by community and family, and are described here as tradition, not instruction, and with no claim that they work. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.