Akshaya Tritiya

All that I knew about this day was if we buy any gold or purchase any property, it will grow many fold in the coming months. Few days back I happened to read this article from Bharath gyan on Rishimukh magazine about Akshaya trithiya.

Some interesting things were stated :

This particular day, it seems :

1. Treta yuga started
2. Sun and Moon are seen the brightest best from the west coast of India
3. Is the birthday of Parashurama, who is considered the 6th avatar of Vishnu
4. Veda Vyasa started dictating his family biography called Jaya, which is known to us as Mahabharata

But, if we take the word ‘Akshaya’, it means something that never diminishes(Akshaya paatra sounds familiar right?!) and can be attributed to endless limitless provision of food, wealth and prosperity, that never diminishes. ‘Tritiya’ refers that it’s the 3rd day after amavaasya(new moon day).

Bhageeratha prayatna

As we can see, the reasons above cannot be considered as reasons for today being called as “Akshaya tritiya”… So that “something else” that has happened was – it seems this day, long long time ago, Bhageeratha, an ancient king of the Surya vamsha, by his extraordinary efforts, cut through the rocks in the upper Himalayas and brought the waters of Ganga this side to give unending prosperity to his land, kingdom and people. Whatever route that we have seen the river Ganga take, is actually man made and was accomplished by Bhageeratha. That’s why Ganga is also referred to as ‘Bhageeratha prayatnam’ and is herself called ‘Bhageerathi’ :-). It is this event of bringing prosperity with the waters, that has been commemorated with Akshaya tritiya day.

I Loved this line that they had stated in the article – “Gold and Platinum are only a ‘result’ of prosperity and not the ’cause’ of prosperity. Unending water supply is the ’cause’ of prosperity.” Very true right?! If not for our water resources, it would have been extremely challenging or impossible for us to exist!

It can be considered that this day should have been celebrated by us every year to recollect the efforts of our forefathers to make this a better and prosperous place to live in. But, through the years, we have lost the significance and Ganga is now being polluted by all means and we only remember the Gold and Platinum! A better way to celebrate, rather than just buying gold would be to safeguard our resources, our planet in whatever means we can – plant a tree (ask me and join us on June 5th), stop polluting water, lessen the usage of plastic bags or better may be to stop using them, or anything to protect our Planet, so that generations to come can remember us for doing good 🙂 and not end up cursing us! What say?!