Guru Purnima

Overview

Guru Purnima is Ashadha Purnima, the full moon that begins the rains, kept for one’s teacher. Its first name is Vyasa Purnima — the birthday of Veda Vyasa, who is held to have divided the Vedas into four, composed the Mahabharata and the eighteen Puranas, and set the pattern of guru and disciple that Indian teaching has followed since. On the day, a disciple honours the guru with a puja and a gift, and monastic traditions begin the four-month Chaturmas retreat. The same full moon is kept by Buddhists as the day of the first sermon at Sarnath and by Jains as the day Mahavira took his first disciple.

Story and scripture

The Skanda Purana names the day Vyasa’s and gives the Guru Gita — Shiva’s instruction to Parvati on the nature of the guru — as its text; the Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnu, Gurur devo Maheshvara verse, which almost everyone knows, is from that tradition. The Mahabharata’s own opening tells of Vyasa dictating the epic to Ganesh, who agreed to write on condition that the poet never paused.

Ashadha Purnima is also the traditional first day of Chaturmas, the four months of the monsoon in which wandering ascetics stay in one place and teach; the Buddhist vassa retreat begins on the same full moon, from the Buddha’s own practice of settling for the rains. The overlap is old and the traditions kept it separately.

How the day is kept

For a disciple with a living guru: the visit, the pada puja (washing or touching the feet), a garland, a lamp, the guru dakshina — whatever offering one can make — and the day spent in the guru’s company or in the practice the guru gave.

For everyone else: a puja to Vyasa’s image or to a picture of one’s teacher; the Guru Stotram or the Gurur Brahma verse; a visit to a school teacher, a music teacher, a parent. Students of classical music and dance mark the day formally, with a guru vandana at the school.

In ashrams and maths: the largest gathering of the year — Shirdi, the Ramakrishna Mission, the Chinmaya Mission, Isha and the Art of Living all hold it as their principal public day — and the beginning of Chaturmas, with a discourse series that runs to Kartika Purnima.

Jaap. The guru mantra one has received; the Guru Gita; otherwise one’s ordinary daily count offered in the teacher’s name. Nothing on this site is specific to the day, and this page links no chalisa or aarti.

Regional forms

• Maharashtra: Vyasa Purnima, and the Ashadhi season — the Pandharpur pilgrimage’s Ashadhi Ekadashi falls four days earlier; see the Panduranga page.
• Nepal: Guru Purnima is Teachers’ Day, kept in schools.
• Buddhist communities (India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia): Dhamma Day or Asalha Puja, the first turning of the wheel.
• Jain communities: Treenok Guha Purnima, for Gautama Swami.
• Sikh tradition: the guru’s day is not this one — Guru Nanak Jayanti falls on Kartik Purnima; see that page.

The date

Ashadha Purnima current at sunrise in one’s own city; the table gives New Delhi.