I am still doing my beginers in xml. I am trying to
pass a parameter from a jsp page which can be accessed
from my style sheet.

<?xml version="1.0"?> <xsl:stylesheet
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
version="1.0">

<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:param name="firstParam"/>

You declared a parameter for the template matching "/".
A stylesheet parameter is a child element of the
stylesheet element. Try this:
 <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
   <xsl:param name="firstParam"/>
   <xsl:template match="/">
     <xsl:value-of select="firstParam"/>
     <xsl:apply-templates/>
   </xsl:template>
 </xsl:stylesheet>