Varshitap Plan: Every Day from Fagan Vad 8 to Akshaya Tritiya

This tool lays a whole varshitap out for your city: the first day, the parana day, every civil day between with its tithi and its vow, the parva days, and the sunrise and sunset you will keep the vows by. Varshitap, the year fast, is kept in memory of Rishabhanatha’s first alms. It begins on Fagan vad 8, Phalguna Krishna 8 in the Gujarati month count, and ends with the parana on Akshaya Tritiya, Vaishakha Shukla 3, about thirteen months later. In between, a day of full fast (upvas) alternates with a day of eating (biyasana or ekasana).

Computed with this tool for Ahmedabad: the varshitap that began on Wednesday 11 March 2026, the day our Akshaya Tritiya page gives, has its parana on Sunday 9 May 2027, 425 civil days, because an adhika (extra) Jyeshtha falls inside it in 2026. The one begun on Saturday 22 March 2025 had its parana on Sunday 19 April 2026, 394 civil days, the day published Jain panchangs and our Akshaya Tritiya page give. By the tithi-at-sunrise rule it would have been Monday 20 April, and the tool names that day as the other view whenever the two differ. It also gives the times Vaishakha Shukla 3 begins and ends in your city.

How it works

The two ends. The tool reads the tithi current at sunrise in your city for each day around Fagan and around Vaishakha, names the lunar month the amanta way (from the Sun’s sidereal sign at the new moon that began it, as our Paryushan and Samvatsari tool does), and finds the civil day that carries Phalguna Krishna 8 at sunrise. If a tithi is at two sunrises it takes the second day, and if it is at no sunrise it takes the day it begins, which is the Jain rule for a doubled or skipped tithi that our Jain tithi tool uses for Shvetambara sanghs. The parana day follows the published Jain panchangs, which kept Akshaya Tritiya 2026 on Sunday 19 April at Ahmedabad, the day Vaishakha Shukla 3 began, and not on Monday 20 April, the day it was at sunrise. The rule behind that day is the one the festival calendar on our main site uses for Akshaya Tritiya: the parana is on the day Vaishakha Shukla 3 is current at any moment of the forenoon (the purvahna, the second of five equal parts of the time from sunrise to sunset). If it is current in the forenoon of two days, the first is taken; if of neither, the day it is at sunrise.

The days between. Day 1 is an upvas, day 2 an eating day, and so on in strict alternation to the day before the parana. Each row shows the tithi at sunrise, whether it is a parva day, and the sunrise and sunset on your city’s clock. You can name the eating days biyasana or ekasana; only the label changes.

The rule and its sources. Jainpedia’s article on Varshitap, by M. Whitney Kelting, says the fast always begins on Fagan dark 8th and ends on Vaishakh bright 3rd, thirteen and a half months later, with days of total fasting alternating with days of partial fasting. Fagan vad 8 is Chaitra Krishna 8 in the purnimanta count, the day of Rishabhanatha’s diksha in our kalyanaka calendar, which follows Hemachandra’s Trishashti-Shalaka-Purusha-Charitra. Our page on Akshaya Tritiya and varshitap tells the story of the first alms.

Reading the result

The first line gives the first day, the parana day and the counts of upvas and eating days. The table below it opens one month at a time; parva days are shaded, and the parana is the last row. “Copy the plan as text” puts the whole list on your clipboard for a note or a message.

If the plan has an odd number of days, strict alternation puts an eating day just before the parana, so the pattern has to change once somewhere, and the tool says so rather than choosing for you. A note on Akshaya Tritiya always gives the times Vaishakha Shukla 3 begins and ends in your city and says how the parana day was found. When the tithi-at-sunrise rule gives a different day, as in 2026, when it gave Monday 20 April at Ahmedabad, the note names that day as the other view. The parana row then shows the tithi at that day’s sunrise, Vaishakha Shukla 2, because Vaishakha Shukla 3 begins later that day. Far to the north or south, a day on which the Sun does not rise is marked “No sunrise”, and a day of midnight sun “No sunset”.

Checked. The first day was compared with an independent calculation made with the Swiss Ephemeris for each year from 1900 to 2074 at four test places (Mumbai, Lautoka, London and New York) and from 2000 to 2035 at four more. Of the 844 first days compared, 843 agreed; the one difference, Fagan vad 8 at London in 2068, is a day on which the tithi changes within a minute of sunrise. The parana day was compared, for 836 of those place-years, with the same forenoon rule worked out from Swiss Ephemeris sunrise, sunset and tithi times: 835 agreed. The one difference, at a test place in Gujarat in 2014, is a tithi that begins within a minute of the end of the forenoon. The parana day also agrees with the festival calendar on our main site, which works out Akshaya Tritiya with its own code and ephemeris, in 2,974 of 2,975 place-years (17 places, 1900 to 2074), with that same one difference. The times the note gives for the start and end of Vaishakha Shukla 3 were checked against the Swiss Ephemeris for 836 place-years: all 1,672 were within two minutes, and 1,492 within one.

Where traditions differ

• The eating days. Kelting calls them days of partial fasting. Our Akshaya Tritiya page gives biyasana, two sittings, and notes a stricter form in which the eating days are ekasana.
• The day of a tithi. Shvetambara sanghs keep a doubled tithi on its second day and Digambara sanghs on its first. Varshitap in this thirteen-month form is chiefly a Shvetambara practice, so the tool follows the Shvetambara reading.
• Akshaya Tritiya itself. In 2026 Vaishakha Shukla 3 began at about 10:50 AM on Sunday 19 April and ended at about 7:28 AM on Monday 20 April at Ahmedabad. Published Jain panchangs, and our Akshaya Tritiya page, keep the parana on the Sunday, the day the tithi is current in the forenoon, and this tool follows them. The other view takes the tithi at sunrise, the rule our other Jain tools use, which gives the Monday. Because the forenoon falls earlier on the clock in cities further east, the forenoon rule can give different days in different cities: in 2026 it gives Monday 20 April at Kolkata, where the tithi began after the forenoon was over. Take the parana day from your sangh.
• Parva days. How a parva day that falls on an eating day is kept is for your guru to set. The tool marks the parva days and does not move the pattern.

What it does not do

It does not give the vow itself, the pachkhan you take each morning, or the rules your guru sets for the eating days. The day-by-day pachkhan times are on the pachkhan time calculator. It does not judge whether you are fit to keep the fast. Varshitap is long and hard: it is taken from a guru and kept with the sangh, and anyone with a medical condition, on regular medicine, pregnant or elderly should speak to a doctor before starting.

Frequently asked questions