Sacred Facts · At a Glance
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Festivals
No primary scriptures are catalogued for this entry yet. If you know of scriptural references we have missed, please contribute them.
[BEGINNER]
Once a year, as the monsoon settles monks into town for chaturmasa (the four-month rains retreat), Jain households turn inward: Paryushana — "abiding together" — eight days (Shvetambara) or ten (Digambara Das Lakshana) of fasting, study, and repair. It ends in the most beautiful single rite in Indian religion: every Jain asks every other for forgiveness — Micchami Dukkadam: "If I have offended you in thought, word, or deed, knowingly or unknowingly — I seek your pardon."
The days run on discipline: fasting (a day, three days, eight days — atthai — or the plain single meal of ayambil, without ghee, milk, or spice), boiled water only between sunrise and sunset, temple attendance, and listening — Shvetambaras to the Kalpa Sutra (Mahavira's life recited, his birth celebrated on day five), Digambaras to the Tattvartha Sutra's ten virtues: forgiveness, humility, honesty, purity, truth, restraint, austerity, renunciation, detachment, chastity.
[INTERMEDIATE]
The two traditions diverge in form, not spirit. Shvetambara Paryushana culminates in Samvatsari — the year's pratikramana (repentance), then the forgiveness circuit: juniors bow to elders, rivals embrace, letters fly worldwide. Digambara Das Lakshana Parva gives each of the ten virtues its own day, closing with Kshamavani, their forgiveness day. Slaughterhouses close in several states; stock-exchange Jain brokers fast at their desks; Mumbai's Pydhonie fills with white-clad processions. The theology is exacting — every harm to any living being, however microscopic, is inventoried — and the sociology is warm: no Jain ends the season estranged if the rite is kept.
[SCHOLAR]
Paryushana's monsoon logic is ancient: wandering monks must stop lest they crush new life underfoot — and the laity's annual retreat mirrors it. The Kalpa Sutra recitation (with its auction of the honor to sponsor each day's reading) fuses merit-economy with scripture in ways scholars compare to Buddhist vassa. Contemporary debates — hospital feeding-tube fasts (sallekhana vs. Paryushana fasting), civic slaughter bans, diaspora date-unification — keep the season quietly newsworthy far beyond Jain homes.
