Basant Panchami a Hindu festival in honor of Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, art and music.
It is celebrated on fifth day of spring or fifth day of Magh Hindu month.
Also known as Saraswati Puja, this festival is celebrated in Nepal, India and Bangladesh to invoke wisdom and consciousness in human beings.
Saraswati - Goddess of knowledge, wisdom and arts, she is the daughter of Lord Shiva and Goddess Durga.
She is considered as consort of Brahma, the Hindu god of creation. Thus, with the goddesses Lakshmi and Parvati or Durga, she forms the Tridevi
She has sacred scriptures in one hand and a lotus – the symbol of true knowledge – in the second.With her other two hands she plays the music of love and life on a string instrument called the veena.
Saraswati's vahan or vehicle is the hans or swan. The swan has the ability to hold the mix of water and milk in its beak and spew out pure water from one side and milk from the other side. This is known as neer-kshir vivek or the water-milk wisdom in Indian philosophy. A wise person is one, who, like the swan, picks out pearls of wisdom from a vast spread of knowledge.
Goddess Saraswati endows human beings with the powers of speech, wisdom and learning. She has four hands representing four aspects of human personality in learning: mind, intellect, alertness and ego.
Dressed in white, Saraswati holds a mala and a palm leaf scroll.
Notebooks, pencils and pens are kept at the Devi's feet for blessings and then used by the students on her birthday. The colour yellow is of special import during Basant Panchami as it the coming of Spring after a long and arduous winter.
The Basant fair is held in many villages of the Punjab. People put on yellow costumes appropriate to the season.
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Saraswati Vandana Mantra
Yaa Kundendu tushaara haaradhavalaa, Yaa shubhravastraavritha
Yaa veenavara dandamanditakara, Yaa shwetha padmaasana
Yaa brahmaachyutha shankara prabhutibhir Devaisadaa Vanditha
Saa Maam Paatu Saraswatee Bhagavatee Nihshesha jaadyaapahaa
