Guru Pūrṇimā

When it falls

The full moon (pūrṇimā) of Āṣāḍha, in late June or July. It opens the four months of the monsoon retreat (cāturmāsya).

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

Guru is the one who removes darkness: gu is darkness, ru the one who dispels it. The day is Vyāsa's birthday, the sage who arranged the Vedas into four, composed the Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas, and stands at the head of every line of teachers.

Buddhists keep the same full moon for the Buddha's first sermon at Sārnāth, given to the five ascetics who became his first students. Jains keep it as the day Mahāvīra accepted Gautama Swāmī as his first disciple.

Wandering monks stopped travelling for the rains from today and stayed in one place to teach; the students who came to them gave the day its shape.

How the day is kept

• Students visit their teachers, of any subject, with flowers, fruit and a gift, and touch their feet.
• Guru pūjā is performed in āśramas and temples, with the image or sandals (pādukā) of the lineage's founding teacher.
• New study is begun: a first lesson of music, a first verse of a text.
• Farmers mark the start of the sowing season; the moon is the one Indian astronomers used to fix the monsoon.

More holy days