Basant

The 6 seasons of the Indian year are as follows:

Grisham- Summer-April & May are Dry & Hot.

Varsha- Monsoon- June & July are Wet and Humid.The landscape around Jaipur turns  green.

Sharad August & September are less hot

Hemant- October & November are the start of winter

Shishir – December & January are Cold. Winter has set in.

Basant-Spring – February & March Not too hot not & too cold.

A Mustard Field in Full Bloom

Basant officially starts after Basant Panchmi or Rishi Panchmi ( 5th day of the Magh month), the day  when  goddess Saraswati was born and  is worshiped with  Lord Sri Krsihna and Kamdev and his wife Rati .Goddess Saraswati is the goddess  of  knowledge, art  & music. The goddess is dressed in white and her vahan are white swan and peacock. In her hands She holds a veeana, a book and a string of beads.She is worshipped in three roops, Maha Sarawati,Maha lakshmi and Maha kali.These are the three roops worshiped in the caves of  Vaishno Devi. People dress up in yellow to worship her and offer her yellow sweets and flowers and lotus.  It is the most auspicious day  to get married also. And people do so too in large numbers.

Basant  is the king of all  seasons. This is when nature rejuvenates itself. Taking a cue from nature hearts of all  men and women sing the joyous songs of life. Suffice it to say here that great  writers and poets in India and abroad have written panegyric after panegyric in praise of this season, in particular. Bihari and Padmakar,two poets from Jaipur, writing in Brijbhasa, have outdone themselves in describing basant.

On this day the idols in the Govind Dev Ji’s Temple wear yellow also.

Holi is its  main festival.

It was Rishi Panchmi when Lord Sri Ram graced  Shabri mata’s hut with his presence. He was on his way to find Goddess Sita.

In 1192 A.D. on Basant Panchami Prithviraj Chauhan and poet Chandbardai stabbed each other to death after a blind  Prithviraj Chauhan had killed Mohammed Gahori  in his own citadel.

In 1872 on Basant Panchami Guru Ram Singh Kuka was  apprehended by the British Forces and  sent to Burma to be incarcerated till death in 1885  in the Mandalay Prison.