Navpad Oli: Nine Days of the Siddhachakra

Navpad Oli, also called Ayambil Oli, is a nine-day observance held twice each year, in the bright fortnight of the month of Chaitra in spring and again in the bright fortnight of the month of Ashwina in autumn, each period concluding on a full moon. It is devoted to the veneration of the nine supreme entities known as the Navpad, and it is distinguished by the practice of a particular restrained form of fasting called Ayambil, kept on each of the nine days.

The nine pads that give the observance its name are the objects of its worship. Five of them are the supreme beings honoured in the great Navkar Mantra: the Arihantas, who have conquered their inner enemies and attained omniscience while still embodied; the Siddhas, the perfected and liberated souls; the Acharyas, the leaders of the ascetic order; the Upadhyayas, the teachers of scripture; and the Sadhus, the monks who tread the path. To these five are added four qualities that describe the means of liberation: right knowledge, right faith, right conduct, and austerity. Together the nine are arranged in the form of a sacred diagram called the Siddhachakra, the wheel of the perfected, which is worshipped throughout the observance.

The discipline of Ayambil defines the physical practice of the nine days. It is a form of fasting in which the observer takes a single meal a day consisting only of plain, boiled or dry food, free from all rich or flavourful substances such as milk, oil, sugar, salt in excess, spices and green vegetables. The food is deliberately made bland and unappealing so that the tongue is denied its pleasure, and only boiled water is permitted, taken within the daylight hours. By stripping the meal of all savour, the practice trains the observer to eat for sustenance rather than gratification and to loosen attachment to the pleasures of taste.

Across the nine days the worship is arranged so that each day is dedicated to one of the nine pads in turn, with its own colour, its own hymns, and its own focus of contemplation. Devotees gather in temples to perform the worship of the Siddhachakra, to recite the associated prayers, and to hear the account of King Shripala and Queen Mayanasundari, whose devotion to the Navpad is the traditional story of the observance and whose faith is said to have brought them healing and prosperity.

The observance is regarded as being of eternal standing, present in every cycle of time, and for this reason it holds a place of special honour among Jain festivals. Its twice-yearly return, in spring and autumn, gives the community two fixed seasons in which to gather around the Siddhachakra and to undertake the disciplined fasting that the observance requires. Many keep the full nine days of Ayambil, while others observe as many days as they are able.

Navpad Oli unites doctrine and discipline in a single sustained practice. Through the worship of the nine pads the devotee contemplates both the goal of liberation, embodied in the Arihantas and Siddhas, and the means to reach it, embodied in the teachers of the path and the qualities of knowledge, faith, conduct and austerity. Through the fasting of Ayambil the same devotee enacts in the body the restraint that the doctrine teaches. Its recurring observance keeps the community anchored in the essentials of the faith and offers a regular occasion for the cultivation of both reverence and self-control.