Paryushan

Paryushan is the most important annual period of introspection for many Shvetambar Jains. Its roots are connected with the monsoon season, when Jain monks and nuns traditionally reduced travel to avoid harming the abundance of small living beings and stayed in one place for study and spiritual practice. For lay Jains this developed into an intensive period of fasting, scripture reading, pratikraman, charity and examination of one's conduct. The aim is to loosen karmic attachment by becoming more aware of harm caused through thought, speech and action. The final day, Samvatsari, brings the practice of asking forgiveness from all living beings, commonly expressed through ‘Micchami Dukkadam.’ Paryushan is therefore less a festival of outward celebration than a deliberate inward reset: reducing consumption, repairing relationships and renewing commitment to ahimsa, truth and self-restraint.

Paryushan is significant to the community that observes it and helps preserve religious, family and cultural continuity.

Fasting on a scale nothing else in the Gujarati year asks for: many keep ekasana or ayambil through the eight days, and some keep atthai - eight days on boiled water and nothing else. Green vegetables and root vegetables are put aside. Pratikraman is done morning and evening, and the temples run from before dawn.

The scale is the point. Ekasana is one sitting a day; ayambil is one bland boiled meal without salt, oil, sugar, milk or spice; atthai is the eight days on boiled water alone. Nothing is eaten after sunset on any of them. A child's first atthai is announced, and the community carries the person through it.

Svetambars keep eight days ending at Samvatsari; Digambars keep ten as Das Lakshan Parva, beginning where the Svetambar observance ends and naming a virtue for each day. The two do not overlap by accident - the second follows the first.