Vasant Panchami, also written Basant Panchami, is dedicated to Saraswati. Schools and homes place books, pens and musical instruments before her image, students seek her blessing before study, and small children are often given their first lesson in writing on this day in the Vidyarambha or Akshara-abhyasa rite. The Ya Kundendu vandana is the verse most often recited then. Yellow is the colour of the festival, worn in clothing and offered as mustard flowers and sweetened rice.
It falls on the fifth tithi (Panchami) of the waxing fortnight of Magha, when the fields of the plains turn yellow with mustard. The day is treated as an abujha muhurta, an auspicious span that needs no further calculation, which is why many weddings are fixed to it.
Regional emphasis differs: Bengal, Bihar and the east keep it as a formal Saraswati Puja with public pandals, Punjab flies kites for Basant, and in Rajasthan and the north the day is also associated with the poet-warrior tradition and with early rites for Holi.