Paryushan is one of the two most important festivals for the Jains, the other being Diwali. The duration of Paryusana is for 8 or 10 days.
The date for the Paryushana festival is thus Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi for both Svetambars and Digambars. Because of computational and other differences, there can be some minor differences among various subsects.
During Paryushan following practices are generally observed:
The date for the Paryushana festival is thus Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi for both Svetambars and Digambars. Because of computational and other differences, there can be some minor differences among various subsects.
During Paryushan following practices are generally observed:
- Fasting:
- Total fast where nothing but boiled water is consumed (To make sure there are no insects or microscopic organisms)
- Ekasna, where food is taken only once during the whole day.
- Eating by day, i.e: between sunrise and sunset. This is a practice followed since early times where there was no light, and it was hard to see and insect on the food.
- Pratikaman: On all the days, meditation is done followed by prayers. It is a form of Samayak (meditation)
- Requesting forgiveness: At the end of Paryushan, people ask for forgiveness from other by saying "Michami Dukkadam"
When seeing a person observing fasts, people generally ask him/her 'Saata hai?', which means 'Is everything alright?'. The fasts may stretch upto a month.
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