Vasant Panchami (Saraswati Puja)

Overview

Vasant Panchami is Magha Shukla Panchami, the fifth day of the bright fortnight of Magha, kept as the first day of spring and as Saraswati’s day. In Bengal, Bihar, Odisha and Assam it is simply Saraswati Puja — the goddess of learning worshipped in schools, colleges and homes, books and instruments laid at her feet; in the north it is spring, yellow clothes, kites in Punjab, and Saraswati’s puja among the rest. Children’s first letters are written on the day. See the Saraswati page for the deity.

Story and scripture

The Brahma Vaivarta Purana (Prakriti Khanda) prescribes Saraswati’s worship on this tithi and tells of her birth from Krishna’s mouth as the goddess of speech, and of Brahma’s worship of her on Magha Shukla Panchami. The older Vedic Saraswati is a river and the goddess of eloquence; the Rigveda’s hymn to Vak (10.125) is read as hers. Kalidasa’s Kumarasambhava gives the day’s other thread, spring: Kama, the god of desire, sent to wake Shiva from meditation as the season turns, and burned for it — the Madanotsava of spring that older texts placed on this day.

How the day is kept

Saraswati Puja. An image or a picture of the goddess, in white or yellow, with a veena; books, pens, notebooks, musical instruments and tools of work placed before her; yellow flowers (mustard or marigold), yellow sweets, and the pushpanjali — flowers offered by everyone present after the priest’s or an elder’s mantras. In Bengal the anjali is the centre of the day, and no reading or writing is done until it is over. The puja is followed by the Vidyarambham for young children.

Yellow and spring. New yellow clothes; kesari (saffron) rice, boondi and kesar halwa; in Punjab and Haryana, kites, and in the Braj temples the beginning of the Holi season — the first colour is thrown on the deities on Vasant Panchami, forty days before Holi.

Jaap. Om Aim Saraswatyai Namah, one mala or more; the Saraswati Vandana; the Saraswati Chalisa; Jai Saraswati Mata as the aarti. Students keep the count before an examination season; musicians keep it before a performance. The texts are linked below.

Regional forms

• West Bengal, Assam, Tripura: Saraswati Puja in every school and college, with the hatekhori (first letters) ceremony; young people dress in yellow and the day is the students’ festival of the year.
• Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha: Saraswati Puja, with community pandals on the Durga Puja model and the immersion of the image the next day.
• Punjab and Haryana: Basant, the kite day; the Sufi shrines of the region keep it too, the Basant of Nizamuddin Auliya’s dargah in Delhi being the best known.
• Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan: Vasant Panchami with the Saraswati puja at home and in schools; the Braj temples’ first Holi colour.
• Maharashtra and Gujarat: kept quietly; Saraswati’s day in the west is the Navratri’s Ashtami–Navami with Ayudha Puja.
• South India: Saraswati’s puja is on the last days of Navratri rather than in Magha; Vasant Panchami is a minor day.

The date

Panchami at sunrise in one’s own city. Bengali calendars take the tithi at sunrise for the puja; the table gives New Delhi and notes any year in which Kolkata differs.

Mantra, aarti and chalisa for Vasant Panchami (Saraswati Puja)

Mantra Om Aim Saraswatyai Namah ॐ ऐं सरस्वत्यै नमः Aarti Jai Saraswati Mata जय सरस्वती माता Chalisa Saraswati Chalisa सरस्वती चालीसा