Mumbai: More than 200 people from the Jain community broke their year-long varshitap fast on the auspicious day of Akshay Tritiya. Thousands of people from the community attended the varshitap parna event organised in Matunga to witness the mass fast-breaking ceremony.
As a religion that strongly believes in penance, followers of Jainism often accept various types of challenges for them, mostly related to the intake of food. Chauvihar, aayambil, ekasana and atthai are some of the fasting techniques followed by the believers. Varshitap is one of these techniques, where a person eats every alternate day for 13 months and 13 days continuously.
In Mumbai, around 229 members of the Jain community broke their varshitap fast on Friday at a mass parna event. Parna is a fast-breaking ceremony where the fasting person is offered light juices to help them break the fast and honour their penance. The Akhil Bharat Achalgachha Vidhipaksh Shwetambar Jain Sangh had organised varshitap parna for all the 229 people on the auspicious day of Akshaya Tritiya at the Khalsa college ground in Matunga.
“In Jainism, Akshaya tritiya is a very important day as it commemorates the ending of our first tirthankara Rishabhnath’s one-year asceticism. After one full year of fasting, he broke it by consuming sugarcane juice. Even today, those who observe Varshitap, break the fast with sugarcane juice,” said a member of the Jain community.
At the varshitap parna organised in Matunga, people from the Kutchi Visa Oswal, Kutchi Dasha Oswal, Marwari and Gurjar Jain sub-communities from Gujarat, Rajasthan, Hyderabad and West Bengal also broke their fast, apart from the people from Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra. From teenagers to senior citizens, a lot of participants completed as many as 44 consecutive varshitap fasts on Friday.
Jitendra Vora, trustee of Akhil Bharat Achalgachha Vidhipaksh Shwetambar Jain Sangh, said, “We have been organising mass varshitap parna ceremony in Mumbai for over three decades. This was the 33rd year that people from across the country came to Mumbai and completed their varshitap. Under the guidance of three maharaj saheb and two sadhvi maharaj, 229 tapasvi broke their fast and the entire event was funded by only two donor families.”
