Vidyārambham

When it falls

The morning of Vijayadaśamī, the tenth day of the bright half of Āśvina, in late September or October. It closes the three days through which the books were laid before Sarasvatī.

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

The story

For three days Kerala stops reading. Books, tools and instruments are laid before Sarasvatī on aṣṭamī evening (Pūjāveppu), left untouched through Mahā Navamī, and taken back on Vijayadaśamī morning (Pūjāyeduppu). Learning is put down so that it can be picked up deliberately.

The taking-back is the child’s beginning. A child of about three is seated on the lap of a teacher or an elder, who guides its index finger to write in a tray of raw rice, and then writes the same letters on its tongue with a gold ring dipped in honey. The words are Hari Śrī Gaṇapataye Namaḥ, the invocation every Malayalam schoolbook once opened with.

The queues form before dawn at Panachikkad near Kottayam and at Thunchan Parambu in Tirur, where Thunchath Ezhuthachan, the father of modern Malayalam, is remembered. Thousands of children are started in a single morning, and the newspapers print their photographs the next day.

How the day is kept

• Pūjāveppu on aṣṭamī evening: books, ledgers, tools and instruments are stacked before an image of Sarasvatī and a lamp is lit; nothing is taken from the pile until the tenth.
• A child’s finger is guided through its first letters in a tray of rice, and then the same letters are written on its tongue in honey with gold.
• Craftsmen, drivers and shopkeepers keep the same three days for their tools and vehicles, which is Āyudha Pūjā under another name. Working days are genuinely lost to it.
• Musicians and dancers give the year’s first performance on this morning, and many students restart a practice today rather than on a birthday or a term date.
• Older students and adults returning to a subject write the same line, so the day belongs to more than the three-year-olds.

At the table

Payasam at the temple after the writing, and at home the first meal of the reopened year: aviyal, pulissery and rice.

More victory and deliverance