Akshaya Tritiya 2028in Mysore

Akshaya Tritiya — the third day of the bright fortnight of Vaishakha — is one of the swayamsiddha muhurtas: a self-auspicious day on which every moment is considered ready for any auspicious undertaking, and on which no separate panchang calculation is needed to find a shubh time. The name itself carries the principle — akshaya means imperishable, that which does not diminish; tritiya is the third. The day is associated with more origin-events than perhaps any other tithi in the Hindu calendar, and each of these stories is given as a reason for the day's undiminishing nature.

The Mahabharata gives the first and most-told association. After Vyasa had completed the great war and the deaths of nearly everyone he had loved, he sat under a tree at the source of the Ganga and considered the kshatriya tragedy that had passed. He resolved to compose its account in a hundred thousand verses — a katha so large that no human scribe could keep pace with the speed of its dictation. He invoked Brahma, who told him to invoke Ganesha. Ganesha came; the two settled their compact — Ganesha would write nothing that he did not understand, and Vyasa would dictate without pause. Ganesha drew out one of his tusks for a pen. The first verses of the Mahabharata were dictated on Akshaya Tritiya. The composition went on for years (and Vyasa would slip in difficult shlokas whenever he needed a pause, knowing Ganesha would have to stop and think them through), but the day it began is observed as the day the longest text in human literature was born — a text that has not diminished in eighteen hundred years and is therefore akshaya.

A second association belongs to the Treta Yuga. The Puranas describe four yugas of decreasing dharmic completeness — Satya (full), Treta (three-quarters), Dvapara (half), Kali (quarter). The transition from Satya to Treta is said to have occurred on Akshaya Tritiya; therefore the day marks the calendar-anchor of a new cycle, and any undertaking begun on the day is said to carry the impulse of that new beginning. The Vamana avatara and the Parashurama avatara of Vishnu are both placed on Akshaya Tritiya — Parashurama born on this day to the rishi Jamadagni and his wife Renuka, charged with restoring kshatriya dharma after its long degeneration. Parashurama Jayanti is observed alongside Akshaya Tritiya in many regions.

A third association concerns the household and Annapurna. The Markandeya Purana describes the Pandavas' twelve-year vanavasa, during which the difficulty of feeding the daily stream of rishis who came to their hermitage tested even the discipline of Yudhishthira. Krishna himself came to them and gave Draupadi a copper vessel — the akshaya patra — which would produce limitless food until Draupadi had eaten her last morsel of the day. The vessel was given on Akshaya Tritiya, and it produced food without diminishing through the long years of exile. From this comes the day's long observance of feeding the poor and donating food — annadana — as the act of charity most aligned with the day's nature. What is given in food on Akshaya Tritiya is said to return imperishable.

A fourth association is the Sudama story. The Bhagavata Purana describes Krishna's childhood friend Sudama, who as an adult had fallen into desperate poverty. His wife persuaded him to walk to Dwarka to ask for Krishna's help. Sudama, ashamed of his condition, took only what he had — a small twist of poha (rice flakes) tied in a corner of his cloth — and arrived at the palace gate. Krishna, recognising him at once, embraced him as the friend of his Sandipani-ashram days, washed his feet with his own hands, took the poha and ate it with great satisfaction, and asked nothing of Sudama. Sudama, too embarrassed to mention his poverty, returned home empty-handed — only to find that his hut had been transformed into a palace, his wife dressed in fine cloth, his children fed, the courtyard full of cows. Krishna had given without being asked; he had given without being seen to give. The Sudama story is told on Akshaya Tritiya because it is the day on which what is given comes back in undiminishing form — but only when the giving itself has been undiminishing.

A fifth association concerns Kubera. The Brahma Purana describes Kubera, before his elevation to lord of wealth, as a simple householder of devotion to Shiva. He performed long penance on this day and was granted by Shiva the position of treasurer of the worlds and lord of yakshas. Akshaya Tritiya is therefore the day on which any household offering to Lakshmi or Kubera is said to lock in long-term prosperity.

The practice of buying gold on this day descends from the convergence of these traditions: gold is the metal that does not tarnish — akshaya in its physical nature — and what is bought on a swayamsiddha muhurta is said to carry the muhurta's permanence into the household. The deeper practice, the one the Puranas emphasise more, is annadana — feeding others — for the food given on this day returns multiplied. The day teaches that the imperishable is not what is locked away but what is given away to others.