यह पृष्ठ अभी हिन्दी में उपलब्ध नहीं है — नीचे अंग्रेज़ी संस्करण है। अनुवाद शीघ्र आ रहा है।
ज्ञान पंचमी
Jnana Panchami · also Labdhi Panchami, Saubhagya Panchami
A day given to knowledge, and to the care of the manuscripts that carry it.
A day given to knowledge, and specifically to the physical objects that carry it. Manuscripts are brought out of the temple libraries, dusted, checked, sometimes read from, and displayed — a practice that has incidentally preserved a great deal of Indian manuscript culture, because a collection inspected once a year is a collection whose losses are noticed.
The reasoning behind the day is that right knowledge is one of the three jewels, and that knowledge in a tradition without a printing press exists only as long as somebody maintains the palm leaf it is written on. Reverence for the text and conservation of the text are, on this day, the same act.
It falls five days after Diwali, in the bright fortnight of Kartik, and in Gujarat it opens the reading season that follows the new year.
How it is kept
- Manuscripts and books are cleaned, arranged and displayed; some libraries open to visitors only on this day.
- A fast is kept by those undertaking the five-year observance associated with the day.
- Study is begun rather than concluded — starting a text on this day is considered auspicious.
This is the Svetambara observance. The Digambara day for the scriptures is Shruta Panchami, in the bright fortnight of Jyeshtha, which commemorates a specific event — the writing down of the Shatkhandagama — rather than knowledge in general.