Guru Purnima

Guru Purnima falls on the full moon of Ashadh — Ashadhi Poonam — and is also called Vyas Purnima, for it honours the birth of Maharshi Ved Vyas, the sage who arranged the one Veda into four, composed the Brahmasutras and the Mahabharat, and gave the world the Shrimad Bhagavat. Since ancient times this full moon has been the day on which India bows to the guru — the one who removes darkness, as the word itself says.

In Pushtimarg the day carries a particular sweetness. The sampradaya's fountainhead is Shri Vallabhacharya Mahaprabhuji, and the seat of guru continues in his vansh — the Goswami balaks descended through Shri Gusainji — from whose hands Vaishnavs receive nam-nivedan and Brahmasambandh. On Guru Purnima, Vaishnavs offer vandan at the charan of their Guruji, present bhet, and receive ashirvad; in havelis and baithaks the day passes in kirtan and gratitude toward the whole parampara that has carried the marg from Shri Mahaprabhuji's time to ours.

In Pushtimarg everything begins at the guru's hands. It is the guru who gives Brahmasambandh — the initiation by which a soul is offered to Shri Krishna and becomes truly his — and so without the guru there is no entry into seva, no marg at all. Shri Mahaprabhuji himself is the sampradaya's jagat-guru: it was he who received the Brahmasambandh mantra from Shri Thakorji at Gokul and opened the path of grace for ordinary householders. His works stand upon Vyasji's — the Anubhashya expounds the Brahmasutras, the Subodhiniji unlocks the Shrimad Bhagavat — so when a Vaishnav honours Ved Vyas and honours the Vallabh kul, it is one unbroken stream of grace being thanked.

Guru Purnima is therefore less a festival than a debt lovingly acknowledged: whatever seva we do, whatever swarup we serve, whatever kirtan is on our lips, reached us through someone. The day invites the Vaishnav to renew samarpan, to remember the guru's vachan, and to walk the coming year holding the guru's hand a little more tightly.