Every page I turn, there is a pretty lady, heavily adorned, prompting and tempting me to buy jewellery - a gold neckpiece, gold bangles, earrings, diamond-studded rings, atleast a gold coin! My eyes linger at the designs..contemporary yet traditional, stunning pieces. The papers are full of them these last few days. Akshaya Tritiya is round the corner (May 13th this year), and according to them, its THE time to spend all our money on buying these lavish pieces of metal in order to become more prosperous.
I want to pose a question though : how many of us know the names of all the lunar months in the Hindu calender, or how many phases are there in a Hindu lunar month and what are they called? How many of us will be able to recite the "tithi" from one to thirty off the top of our heads? And what is a "tithi" ?
Not many of us know what Akshaya Tritiya is, do we? Till I sat and thought about it, and then read about it, all I knew was that its a very auspicious day and has something to do with Aishwarya Rai's wedding. Inspiring, no? So here's a summary of what I found out.
Akshaya Tritiya falls on the third day (tritiya, teej) of "shukla paksha" or the moon's waxing phase of the Hindu month "Vaishakh", which is late April or early May in the English calender. According to our ancient scriptures, it is one of the four most auspicious days in the year along with Vijay Dashmi, Chaitra Purnima and Kartik Purnima. Scientifically speaking, the Sun, Moon and Jupiter are so placed on this day as to shine their brightest.
Historically, Akshaya Tritiya was the day of many beginnings. Lord Vishnu was born as Parashuram on this day, hence its also called Parashuram Jayanti. It was on this day that Maharishi Ved Vyas started dictating the Mahabharat to Lord Ganesh. And on this very day the mighty Ganga came down to the earth from the heaven. Its considered the first day of the Treta Yug, so is also called the Yugadi Tithi. Its Goddess Annapurna's birthday too. It was on this day that Sudama visited Krishna with a gift of puffed rice, and on his return, found that he had acquired unlimited (Akshaya) wealth and his hut had been transformed into a palace. On this day Yudhishthir received the Akshaya Patra, a utensil with neverending amounts of food, which he used to feed all the people of his kingdom. It was also on this day that Draupadi found herself being unveiled by Dushasana, and prayed to Krishna, who then turned her sari into an unending (Akshaya) piece of cloth.
The vedic scriptures tell us that Akshaya Tritiya is the most auspicious day to perform "Punya karma" or meritorius deeds like "Japa" - recitations, "Tapa" - penance, "Daan" - donations, "Havan" - sacrifices. Knowledge gained or charity done on this day is very fruitful and is said to fill our lives with "Akshaya" prosperity.
The emphasis is more on giving and doing, rather than buying! Its charity and austerity that brings neverending happiness and prosperity to our lives, and not that new piece of gold jewellery. This Akshaya Tritiya, let us all pledge to give unlimited love, happiness, kindness, care, understanding and time to those who need it most, and then let us all see our lives become epitomes of Akshaya Samriddhi.
