Kshamavani Parva 2026: The Digambara Day of Forgiveness

Kshamavani Parva 2026 falls on Sunday 27 September, on Ashvina Krishna 1. It is the Digambara day of forgiveness, and it is not the same day as Ananta Chaturdashi, which closed Das Lakshana on Friday 25 September 2026.

Kshamavani is the largest day of the Digambara year, and it is chronically misreported. Most published Jain calendars either omit it, fold it into Ananta Chaturdashi, or describe it as a Digambara word for Samvatsari. It is none of those things. It is a day with its own tithi, its own placement, and its own logic.

The word

Kshama is forgiveness. Vani is speech, utterance, the saying of a thing. Kshamavani is the day forgiveness is spoken. You will also see Kshama Vani Parva, Kshamapana Parva and, in some regions, Kshamavani Diwas.

The construction is worth pausing on, because it identifies precisely what the day adds. Forgiveness has already been contemplated: Uttam Kshama was the subject of the first of the ten days of Das Lakshana, eleven days earlier. Kshamavani is not where the idea is introduced. It is where the idea is said out loud, to a person, in public.

That two-stage structure, contemplate first and enact later, is the distinctive shape of the Digambara observance, and it is why the day sits after the festival rather than inside it.

Why it falls where it falls

Das Lakshana runs Bhadrapada Shukla 5 to Shukla 14. Shukla 15 is the full moon. Kshamavani is the day after: Ashvina Krishna 1 in the purnimanta naming used across the tradition for this observance, the first day of the dark fortnight that follows.

So the sequence in 2026 is:

Ananta Chaturdashi and Kshamavani are two days apart. They are not variants, alternatives or regional names for one another. If a calendar shows them on the same day, that calendar has an error in it.

A note on the honest variation: a minority of Digambara communities keep Kshamavani on Ananta Chaturdashi itself, and some hold the community gathering on the nearest convenient Sunday rather than on the tithi. The first is a genuine local tradition. The second is a practical accommodation and is generally understood as such. Neither displaces Ashvina Krishna 1 as the standard.

What is said

The Digambara greeting of the day is Uttam Kshama, which is the first of the ten dharmas said back as a wish. Michhami Dukkadam is also widely used and is not a Shvetambara-only phrase, though it belongs originally to the Shvetambara pratikraman liturgy. Both are said with palms joined.

The fuller formula recited on the day is the classical verse of universal forgiveness:

Read the order of the first line. You forgive first, and only then ask to be forgiven. That sequence is deliberate and it is the half most often dropped when the practice is reduced to a greeting. The full treatment of the phrase and the verse is on the Michhami Dukkadam page.

What happens on the day

Practice varies by region and by sangh far more than published summaries admit, but the common elements are these.

The gathering. Many Digambara sanghs hold a Kshamavani sammelan, a community assembly, at which forgiveness is exchanged formally. In some places this is a large public event with addresses and readings; in others it is a temple gathering and nothing more.

Asking within the family first. The customary order is elders before others, and specific before general. A person who has wronged someone in the household is expected to say so there before saying anything to an assembly.

Pratikraman. Digambara pratikraman is performed by ascetics as a matter of course and by many laity on this day. The six avashyaks are the same six the whole tradition recognises; the liturgy and the ordering differ from Shvetambara practice.

Charity and jivdaya. Giving, release of animals, and support of temple and community institutions are ordinary on the day and carry no special ritual apparatus.

The messages. As with Samvatsari, most people will now discharge some of the day by typing. That is not nothing. What a forwarded image does not do is name anything, and the practice asks for a specific wrong, said to a specific person.

The doctrine underneath

Forgiveness is placed first among the ten dharmas for a reason that is mechanical rather than sentimental.

Jain metaphysics treats karma as subtle matter that adheres to the soul, and the four kashayas, anger, pride, deceit and greed, as the adhesive. Krodha, anger, is the first of them. Holding a grievance is therefore not a neutral emotional state in this framework: it is an active binding condition, ongoing for as long as it is held.

This has two consequences that shape the whole day.

Forgiving is done for your own account. Kshama is the release of the anger you are carrying. It is described as putting down a weight rather than as a gift to the person who wronged you, which is also why the verse has you forgive before you ask.

Asking is not settled by the answer. If someone forgives you warmly and you did not mean the words, nothing has been dissolved. If someone refuses and your regret was genuine, the work has been done. The transaction is between a soul and its own karma. The other person’s response belongs to them.

This is the same principle that governs the Jain reading of a birth chart: the grahas indicate karma already bound, and nothing sheds it except the soul’s own act. Kshamavani is that doctrine performed on a fixed date.

What the day does not ask

A tradition that asks for annual, universal forgiveness has to answer an obvious objection: some injuries should not be waved through, and pressure to forgive can itself be a harm.

Jain teaching does not ask you to pretend an injury did not happen, to restore a relationship that damaged you, or to state that what was done was acceptable. Kshama is release of your own anger. It is not a verdict on the other person’s conduct, an obligation to trust them again, or a requirement to return to what hurt you. Veraṃ majjha na keṇavi, I hold enmity towards none, says nothing about proximity.

That distinction is worth keeping in view, because the day is sometimes used to press people into a reconciliation they have sound reasons to refuse. That use of it inverts it.

Kshamavani and Samvatsari

The two traditions arrive at the same practice by different routes, on different days, with different placement relative to their festivals.

Neither arrangement is a variant of the other and neither is more original. Digambara practice contemplates the virtue at the start of the festival and enacts it after; Shvetambara practice makes the enactment the festival’s final day. Both are old, internally consistent and followed in good faith. Where the traditions differ, none of them is wrong, and extending Uttam Kshama to people who keep a different calendar is not a difficult application of the principle.

Frequently asked questions

Related

• Das Lakshana Parva 2026: the ten dharmas, day by day
• Michhami Dukkadam: what the words actually mean
• Samvatsari 2026: the Shvetambara annual day
• Pratikraman: turning back, and what happens in one
• Jain festivals 2026: the complete calendar

Sources. The placement of Kshamavani on Ashvina Krishna 1, the day following the Bhadrapada full moon, follows standard Digambara panchang practice; the civil date is computed from the tithi running at local sunrise, sunrise taken at Ahmedabad, and cross-checks against published Jain calendars for 2026. The Khamemi Savve Jiva verse is given in Ardhamagadhi Prakrit as recited; the karma theory of the four kashayas follows the standard treatment in the Tattvartha Sutra and its commentaries. Local variation, including communities that keep Kshamavani on Ananta Chaturdashi and gatherings held on the nearest Sunday, is reported as variation and not adjudicated. Where a tithi is lost or doubled, Digambara and Shvetambara calendars resolve it by different rules; follow your own sangh's published panchang. Corrections are seva: tell us.