Guru Purnima
The full moon of Ashadha, kept for the teacher — and for Vyasa, who is counted the first of them.
Where it is kept All India; also observed by Buddhists as the day of the first sermon, and by Jains as Guru Purnima for Mahavira's first disciple.
When it falls
Computed from the Moon's elongation from the Sun. The civil day is the one carrying the tithi running at sunrise.
Overview
The day is also Vyasa Purnima, and the two names say the same thing: the teacher is honoured, and Vyasa — who divided the Vedas into four, composed the Mahabharata and is credited with the Brahma Sutras — stands as the first teacher in the line. Where a person has a living guru, the day is spent with them; where they do not, the honour goes to whoever taught them.
The observance is simple and largely undirected: pada puja, the washing of the teacher's feet, or a gift, or in monastic settings the beginning of the chaturmas retreat. It carries no fast and no elaborate ritual.
Where it comes from
For Buddhists this full moon is Asalha Puja — the day the Buddha gave the first sermon at Sarnath to the five ascetics, setting the wheel of dharma turning. It is also the start of vassa, the three-month rains retreat during which monastics stay in one place.
The convergence is not coincidental in its function: for both traditions this full moon opens the monsoon retreat, when wandering teachers settle and teaching happens in one place for four months. The festival is the doorway into the teaching season.
Why it matters
It marks the start of chaturmas, the four monsoon months in which Vishnu is said to sleep, weddings and new ventures are avoided, and religious study is intensified. That constraint runs until Dev Uthani Ekadashi in Kartika.
In the Indian understanding of transmission, knowledge is not held to pass from a book but from a person, and this day is the calendar's acknowledgement of that. It is the one festival addressed to a living human being rather than to a deity.
How to celebrate
- Go to your teacher, or write to themThe day is for a specific person, not for the abstraction of teaching.
- Begin a course of study or a text you have meant to readChaturmas opens here; the four months are the traditional study season.
- Give what the teacher can useDakshina is customary and its form is open; the gesture is the substance.
- Read from the Mahabharata or the BhagavataThe Vyasa association makes this the day for it.
What to avoid
These are not all the same kind of thing. Some are prohibitions from a named text, some are Indian law, some are practical, and some are a confusion worth not repeating. Each item says which it is.
- Do not fix a wedding or a house-warming from today onwardChaturmas begins with this full moon; the muhurta window closes until Dev Uthani Ekadashi.
- Do not make it a gift transactionDakshina in the tradition is what the student can give, not a price. The distinction is explicit in the sources.
- Do not restrict the honour to a religious teacherThe classical list of gurus includes the mother, the father and the schoolteacher before any spiritual one.
Where this comes from
Everything above is either computed by this site’s own panchang engine, or drawn from the works listed here. Where a custom is modern, commercial or contested, the page says so rather than presenting it as ancient.
- Mahabharata and the Vyasa attribution of the Vedic division, the epic and the Brahma Sutras.
- Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya 56.11, for the first sermon kept on this full moon as Asalha Puja.
- Nirnayasindhu, for the chaturmas restrictions beginning at Ashadha Purnima or at Devshayani Ekadashi, depending on the authority followed.
Dates are computed for the place named above and will differ elsewhere. Regional traditions vary; where two reckonings are in use, both are named rather than one being chosen silently.
Other festivals
All festivals, with dates for any year · The calendar on the home page