Varshi Tap Parana 2028: Date, History & Significance

Thousands complete the Varshi Tap each year, many at Hastinapur and at Shatrunjaya (Palitana), where the parana is done ceremonially with sugarcane juice poured from silver vessels. Those keeping it fast every second day for the year, taking only boiled water on fast days; the parana is a major community event with processions and honouring of the tapasvis.

When Rishabhanatha renounced the world, no one yet knew how to offer alms to a monk; for a full year people brought him gold, jewels, elephants and daughters, but never food, and he fasted on. On this Tritiya, at Hastinapur, Prince Shreyans Kumar remembered from a past life how alms should be given, and offered pure sugarcane juice in his cupped hands. The Tirthankara accepted, and the day of the first right alms is kept ever since.

Source: Regional / sectarian festival tradition and the sources named in the text

The Rishabhanatha–Shreyans episode is in the Jain Universal History (the Trishashti-shalaka-purusha-charitra); the Varshi Tap and its Akshaya Tritiya parana are a living Shvetambara austerity, with the Hastinapur parana among the largest Jain gatherings of the year.

• Wikipedia

1. On Akshaya Tritiya, Jains who have kept the Varshi Tap, a year-long cycle of alternate-day fasting, complete it.
2. It recalls Rishabhanatha, who fasted for over a year until King Shreyansa offered him sugarcane juice.
3. The parana is done with sugarcane juice, above all at Palitana and Hastinapur, where thousands gather with their families.

• Hastinapur, Palitana, and Jain centres worldwide. The year-long alternate-day fast completed with the ceremonial sugarcane-juice parana on Akshaya Tritiya.

• Ikshu ras — Sugarcane juice, the first thing taken at the parana, offered by family members.

Varshi Tap Parana (Jain Akshaya Tritiya) is kept on the day when Tritiya of Vaishakha Shukla paksha prevails at sunrise. That day is Thursday, 27 April 2028. Tritiya holds at sunrise only on this day.

at sunrise

Varshi Tap Parana falls on Vaishakha Shukla Tritiya, Akshaya Tritiya, in April or May; the sugarcane-juice parana is taken in the morning.

A lunar date: Tritiya of the bright half of Vaishakha drifts about 11 days earlier each solar year, then jumps back ~19 days when a leap (Adhika) month is inserted.