What is a festival day (Parva - a Jain Festival) according to Jainism?
The daily worship is always fruitful and useful for the upliftment of the soul, but the day of festival or parva is a special day of worshipping, a special kind of worshipping and there is always an ancient event joined with the day. The Parva has some special kind of rites that can increase merits for future. More Penance, more worship, more religious activities are done on the day of Parva. A Soul can create or bind the 'Aayushya Karma' of the next births in future.
Every Parva is celebrated with some special rules and principles. The rites of worship and activities have some special kind of importance in Jain festivals.
This festival is celebrated on Vaishakha Sud 3. ( The third day of the month of Vaishakha) The first Tirthankar-Rushabha Dev got Charitra i.e. left the worldly pleasures after 83 Lakha Purva years of home-life. It is said that Karma has no effect of any brave people or even of Indra, Narendra, Munindra or Jitendra- All Mighty. Rushabha Dev Parmatma went to many houses to get the proper food (Gochari) for him, but no one could understand his desire of food. The people were ready to give elephants, horses, jwellery or even brides to him. But they could not offer any food.
In the previous birth, Rushabha Dev had tied a net on the face of a cow and he did the sin of starving the cow, so the previous Karma was the cause of this incident.
At the end, Shreyans Kumar had got a special knowledge of knowing previous births. He knew that Rushabha Dev wanted food to eat. So he gave him the juice of Sugarcane and Rushabha Dev broke his fasts. This day is known as Akshaya Trutiya from that time.
