Panchami Tithi: The Fifth Day, Naga Panchami and Vasant Panchami

Panchami is the fifth tithi, the stage at which the Moon is between forty-eight and sixty degrees away from the Sun. It marks roughly the end of the first third of each fortnight, and in Shukla paksha it is a young Moon, a little more than a quarter way to full, still a crescent that sets in the evening hours.

The word simply means the fifth. In practice the tithi has a gentle character: it is the first of the three tithis that make up the Purna group, the fulfilling days, and it is the tithi on which the goddess of learning, the serpent deities and the seven sages are each honoured on one day or another in the year.

The tithi at a glance

Group and deity

Purna means full or complete. The Purna group has three tithis, Panchami, Dashami and the day that closes each half, which is Purnima in the bright fortnight and Amavasya in the dark one. Muhurat summaries usually say Purna days are favourable for starting work that one hopes to bring to a complete conclusion, and for ceremonies of every kind.

A common list gives the Nagas, the serpent deities, as the deity of Panchami. The link is a familiar one in popular practice: Naga Panchami is the day for offering milk and flowers to snake images and to anthills. A few texts assign another deity, and your family’s own tradition takes precedence over any list.

Festivals on Shukla Panchami

Vasant Panchami falls on Magha Shukla Panchami and is the day on which Saraswati, the goddess of learning and the arts, is honoured, usually with yellow clothes, yellow flowers and sweets, and with books and instruments placed before her image. Many families begin a child’s first writing on this day. A devotional text for her is on the Saraswati Vandana page.

Naga Panchami is kept on Shravana Shukla Panchami in most of the country, with offerings of milk, rice and flowers to serpent images, and in many places a day of not digging the ground. Rishi Panchami falls on Bhadrapada Shukla Panchami, the day after Ganesh Chaturthi, and is kept in remembrance of the seven sages, with a fast and a bath, mostly by women.

Vivah Panchami on Margashirsha Shukla Panchami marks the wedding of Rama and Sita in popular tradition and is kept especially in Ayodhya and in Nepal at Janakpur, though in some communities marriages are not performed on that day. During Navaratri, the Panchami is also called Lalita Panchami by devotees of the Devi, who honour the goddess in her Lalita form.

Festivals on Krishna Panchami

Krishna Panchami has fewer major festivals. Rang Panchami falls on Phalguna Krishna Panchami, a few days after Holi, and is celebrated with colour in parts of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Some regions keep Naga Panchami on a Krishna Panchami of Shravana, so a regional calendar may differ from the common Shukla date.

As with other dark-half days, the month name attached to a Krishna Panchami depends on whether the calendar counts the month from new Moon to new Moon or from full Moon to full Moon. The page on amanta and purnimanta shows how that works.

What muhurat practice says

Panchami is one of the tithis most often listed as favourable. Shukla Panchami appears in many almanac lists of good days for marriage, for a housewarming, for starting a business, and for the early ceremonies of a child, and it has no mark against it as a Rikta tithi. Krishna Panchami is considered acceptable, though less often chosen.

The Naga association gives it one caution in some traditions: a few families do not dig or plough on Naga Panchami, and others avoid certain work out of respect for the festival. That is a custom of the day and not a rule of the tithi.

As always, the tithi is one of several factors. A family astrologer will look at the weekday, the nakshatra and the birth charts as well, and a day that scores well on the tithi can still be set aside. The muhurat section explains how these factors are put together.

A simple way to observe the day

A quiet observance on Vasant Panchami is to place a book, a pen or an instrument before an image of Saraswati, light a lamp, offer a yellow flower, and recite a short prayer. For Naga Panchami the usual offering is a little milk and a flower at an image of a serpent deity, and some people give the milk to a temple instead.

Fasting on Rishi Panchami and Naga Panchami is traditional but a matter of choice. If you have a health condition, are pregnant, nursing, elderly or taking regular medicine, speak to a doctor before fasting, and keep to a lighter observance if you need to.

Reading the tithi in the calendar

Panchami is a tithi where regional rules show up clearly. For Naga Panchami and Rishi Panchami the calendar usually takes the tithi in force at midday, and for Vasant Panchami the rule is the forenoon, so the festival date can differ from the sunrise tithi by a day in some years.

Because Panchami can be shortened or lengthened by the Moon’s changing speed, it can occur on two civil days or on none. A kshaya Panchami means the tithi starts and ends between two sunrises, and the festival is then fixed by the rule that the observance uses.

To see whether Panchami is the tithi running today in your own city, open the daily panchang. Panchami follows Chaturthi in the cycle and is followed by Shashthi; the whole set is described in the guide to the thirty tithis.

Related pages

• Saraswati Vandana: a text for Vasant Panchami.
• Hartalika Teej Puja: the festival the day before Rishi Panchami.
• Sharad Navratri: the nine nights that include Lalita Panchami.
• Holi: the festival before Rang Panchami.
• Muhurat: how favourable tithis are used.
• Amanta and purnimanta: how the month name for a Krishna Panchami differs.

Frequently asked questions