Temple Living - Vasant Panchami

Ganeshpuri centers around Nityananda's Samadhi Shrine, which is the primary structure on the temple grounds. For holidays, they go all out!

Here it is, decked out for the holiday, Vasant Panchami, which celebrates the coming of Spring, and honors the Goddess Saraswati. She is the Goddess of knowledge, music, and the arts.

Even more spectacular at night!

Decorating the temple for Vasant Panchami began several days before the holiday. This is the pavilion where the fire ceremony will take place.

Decorating was a big and impressive job!

Perhaps most impressive were the mountains of marigolds for garlands. These pictures do not do them justice. The garland mountains started a few days before the holiday, and in the last picture, you can see the mountains of completed garlands.

Photo credit: Swami Shrutananda Saraswati

The pavilion where the yajna (fire ceremony) was going to take place, the night before the event.

The temple has a YouTube channel, where they livestream their noontime Arti every day. You can check it out and become a subscriber here, then you'll be notified when they are live, if you're into that. They also livestream special events, including the ceremonies for Vasant Panchami.

Here's the noontime Arti on Vasant Panchami.

The early morning ceremonies got started with a special pooja to mark the occasion.

A devotional dance had been taking place for at least 12 hours prior to this filming, which includes a procession around the temple grounds to the different Gods, ending at Nityananda's murti.

A yajna, fire ceremony, took place in the pavilion on the temple grounds. Before the fire is an elaborate pooja honoring many dieties including the Goddess Saraswati. Skip ahead to 2:05 to see the process for getting the fire started!

The fire ceremony, or yajna

More of the fire ceremony - it was an all morning affair!