Vasant Panchami 2027: Saraswati and the first day of spring
Vasant Panchami, the fifth day of the bright half of Magha, welcomes spring. It is kept for Saraswati, the Goddess of learning, music and speech, and many children write their first letters on it.
When it falls next
Vasant Panchami in each region
What Vasant Panchami is
Vasant is spring, and the day marks its coming as the mustard flowers yellow in the fields of the north. Saraswati is worshipped as the giver of knowledge, of the arts and of clear speech.
Like a few days of the year, it is counted auspicious in itself for beginnings, and families choose it for a child's first lesson, the vidyarambh, or for a new course of study.
In the countryside of the north it begins the season of spring festivals, and in Braj the wood for the Holi fire is first set up on this day, forty days before the full moon of Phalgun.
How families keep it at home
Yellow is worn, the colour of the spring flowers, and yellow food is made: saffron rice, kesari halwa, boondi.
An image or picture of Saraswati is set in the puja ghar with books, pens and musical instruments before it, and worshipped with white and yellow flowers. Students leave their books there for the day.
A small child is seated on a parent's lap and helped to write the first letters, often "Om" or "Shri", in rice or on a slate.
Families read the Saraswati vandana together, many begin practice on an instrument, and some offer the first ears of the season's wheat or mustard flowers.
How it differs by region
In Bengal, Odisha and Assam it is Saraswati Puja, a great festival of schools and colleges, with the Goddess worshipped in pandals and her image immersed the next day.
In Punjab and the north the day is kept with kites and yellow clothes.
In Maharashtra many homes keep a quiet Saraswati puja, and schools hold their own.
How its date is set
Vasant Panchami is the panchami of the bright half of Magha, kept on the day the panchami holds in the forenoon, when Saraswati puja is done.
Read the Saraswati vandana and the Saraswati aarti, and see the Gayatri yantra card, kept on many study desks.