The Yellow of Spring and the Goddess of Learning

Vasant Panchami marks the arrival of spring (vasant) and is dedicated to Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, music, art and speech; it falls on the fifth day of the bright fortnight of Magha (January-February). Its colour is yellow, for the mustard fields in bloom and the brightening season: people wear yellow, offer yellow flowers and sweets, and in Punjab and the north the day is associated with kite-flying. As the festival of Saraswati (especially in the east, where it anticipates the autumn Saraswati Puja), it is above all a day of learning: books, musical instruments and the tools of art and craft are placed before the goddess and worshipped, and study and work are set aside so that the implements themselves may rest and be honoured.

A cherished custom is Vidyarambham or Akshar-Abhyasam, the initiation of small children into learning: a child is helped to trace its first letters, often in a tray of rice or by an elder's hand, so that formal education begins under Saraswati's blessing on this most auspicious of days for starting to learn. The joining of the return of spring to the worship of the goddess of wisdom gives Vasant Panchami a distinctive gentleness among the festivals, a celebration of both the flowering of the earth and the flowering of the mind.