ಅನಂತ ಚತುರ್ದಶಿ | Anant Chaturdashi

Anant Chaturdashi falls on the fourteenth tithi of the bright fortnight of Bhadrapada, the day before the full moon, and is decided by the tithi at sunrise. Two quite separate things happen on it. It is the day of the Ananta Padmanabha Vrata, and it is the day the great Ganesha immersions are held.

Ananta Padmanabha Vrata

The vrata is to Vishnu as Ananta, the endless, reclining on the serpent Shesha. A serpent is made of darbha grass and laid in a vessel, or a picture of Ananta is set up, and a kalasha is placed before it. The distinguishing object is the ananta dora, a thread dyed with turmeric and tied with fourteen knots, worshipped through the puja and then tied on the arm, on the right for men and the left for women. Fourteen governs everything else: fourteen leaves, fourteen flowers, fourteen kinds of fruit, fourteen puris or fourteen of whatever is offered. The vrata is properly undertaken for fourteen years and then formally concluded, which is why families who keep it speak of being in a particular year of it.

The story is of Kaundinya and his wife Sushila. She kept the vrata and the household prospered; he, not understanding what the thread on her arm was, threw it into the fire, and everything was lost. He went looking for Ananta, was turned back, and recovered what he had lost only by taking up the vrata himself. The Pandavas are also said to have been told to keep it by Krishna during their years in the forest.

In Karnataka the vrata is strongest in the coastal districts and among Vaishnava households, and Ananta Padmanabha is the family deity of many Konkani and Tulu families, which is why the day is kept with some seriousness there and hardly at all in other parts of the state.

The immersions

The other and far more visible thing about the day is that it is the last day of the Ganesha installation for those who keep the image for eleven days, which is what almost every public pandal does. The processions to the tanks and the coast are the largest crowds of the Bhadrapada calendar, and for most people in a city this is simply Ganesha visarjana day.

It is worth being clear that the two observances have nothing to do with each other. The vrata is a Vaishnava household rite of fourteen knots and fourteen years. The immersion is the end of a Ganapati festival that began ten days earlier on the chaturthi. They coincide because the count from chaturthi to chaturdashi is ten days, not because there is any connection of meaning between them.

The same day also closes the Digambara Jain Dasa Lakshana Parva, the ten days that began on the panchami, with the rite of forgiveness asked and given. Three observances, one date, three traditions.