The day of KarwaChauth and Sankashti Chaturthi, which is the day of fasting for Lord Ganesha, occurs at the same time. Married women observe Karwa Chauth fast and its rituals with full devotion for the long life of their husbands. According to the Chandogya Upanishad, fasting on the day of Karwa Chauth destroys all sins and does not cause any kind of trouble in life. This increases the age and on this day Ganesha and Shiva-Parvati and Moon are worshipped.
Married women worship Lord Shiva, Mata Parvati, and Kartikeya as well as Lord Ganesha, and break their fast only after seeing the moon and offering Argha to them. The fast of Karwa Chauth is strict and it is observed from sunrise to the sight of the moon at night without consuming food or water.
The day of Karwa Chauth is also known as Karak Chaturthi. Karwa or Karaka is an earthen vessel from which water is offered to the moon, which is called Argha. Karwa is very important during worship and it is also donated to a Brahmin or a deserving woman. Karwa Chauth is more famous in North India than in South India. Ahoi Ashtami fast is observed four days after Karwa Chauth for the long life and prosperity of sons.
When is KarwaChauth?
The fast of Karwa Chauth is observed during the Chaturthi of Krishna Paksha in the Hindu month of Kartik. According to the Amanta Panchang which is followed in Gujarat, Maharashtra, and southern India, Karwa Chauth falls in the month of Ashwin. However, it is only the name of the month which makes it different and in all the states Karwa Chauth is celebrated on the same day. On the day of Karwa Chauth, worship and fasting of Chauth Mata are observed all over India, but mainly North Indian people observe Karwa Chauth fast on a large scale and worship according to law.
In North India, especially in Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Punjab, the story of Karwa Chauth is heard by observing fast with great enthusiasm. On this auspicious occasion, the story is heard during the day and after seeing the moon at night, the women break the fast by drinking water / taking food from the hands of their husbands. This fast of Karwa Chauth is observed for the long life, health, and happy married life of the husband.
Karwa Chauth fast is observed every year for 12 years or for 16 years continuously. After the completion of the period, the Udyapan (Episamhara) of this fast is done. The married women who want to keep it for life can observe this fast for the rest of their life. There is no other auspicious fast like this fast. Therefore, married women can observe this fast continuously for the protection of their honeymoon.
karwachauth 2021 date and time
- Karwa Chauth 2021 Sunday, 24 October 2021
- Karwa Chauth Puja Muhurta from 17:43 to 18:50 moonrise 20:07
- Chaturthi Tithi Begins 03:00 (24 October)
- Chaturthi date ends at 05:40 (October 25)
Karwa Chauth Vrat Katha
Long ago a Brahmin named Vedasharma lived in a town in Indraprasthapur. Vedasharma was married to Lilavati by whom he had seven great sons and a virtuous daughter named Veeravati. Because she was the only sister of seven brothers, due to which she was dear to her parents as well as her brothers
When she became fit for marriage, she was married to a proper Brahmin young man. After marriage, when Veeravati was at her parents’ place, she along with her sisters-in-law kept a fast of Karwa Chauth for the long life of her husband. During the fast of Karwa Chauth, Veeravati could not bear the hunger and due to weakness she fainted and fell on the ground.
All the brothers could not bear the pathetic condition of their beloved sister. They knew that Veeravati, a virtuous woman, would not take food without seeing the moon, even if she lost her life. All the brothers made a plan together so that their sister would take the food. One of the brothers climbed up a tree some distance away with a sieve and a lamp in his hand. When Veeravati woke up unconscious, all her other brothers told her that the moon had risen and brought her to see the moon on the terrace.
Veeravati, seeing the lamp behind a sieve on the banyan tree some distance away, believed that the moon had come out behind the tree. Distraught with her hunger, Veeravati soon broke her fast by offering Argha to the lamp considering it to be the moon. When Veeravati started eating, she started getting inauspicious signs. In the first mouthful she found hair, in the second she sneezed and in the third mouthful, she received an invitation from her in-laws. After reaching her in-laws’ house for the first time, she found the dead body of her husband.
Seeing the dead body of her husband, Veeravati started weeping and blamed herself for some of her mistakes during the fasting of Karwa Chauth. She started moaning. Hearing his lament, Goddess Indrani, who is the wife of Indra, reached Veeravati to console her.
Veeravati asked Goddess Indrani why her husband died on the day of Karwa Chauth itself and started pleading with Goddess Indrani to revive her husband. Seeing the grief of Veeravati, Goddess Indrani told her that she had broken the fast without offering Argha to the moon, due to which her husband died untimely. Goddess Indrani advised Veeravati to observe the fast of Karwa Chauth as well as on the Chauth of every month throughout the year and assured her that by doing so her husband would return alive.
karwa Chauth rituals
As the date of Karwa Chauth approaches, married women are very excited and start preparations a few days before that. They eagerly wait for that day with great joy and enthusiasm. This festival holds more importance for them than Diwali. She buys everything new from the local market, such as cosmetics, traditional makeup, jewelry, sarees, slippers, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, nail polishes, bindis, puja items, carved lamps, henna, Pooja Thali, etc. A few days before the festival, the market takes on a festive look as shopkeepers start decorating their shops to sell more items of worship and decorations.
In some places (like Punjab) women get up very early in the morning (before 4 o’clock) to have something to eat and drink because they have to fast for the whole day. In other places like in Uttar Pradesh, it is a ritual to eat sweet cotton feni made of milk in the evening a day before the festival to keep one’s body without water and food for the next day. It is very important for them to eat fena as a pre-morning meal.
There is also a ritual of giving sargi in Punjab. Every year on the occasion of Sargi Karwa Chauth, there are a bunch of decorations, sweets, and other food items of married women given to their daughter-in-law by the mother-in-law. It is a ritual that when a newlywed bride observes the Karwa Chauth fast for the first time, she has to follow her mother-in-law’s mother. That is, the method which is told to her by her mother-in-law, she has to follow it throughout her life.
If she is asked by her mother-in-law to take water, tea, juice, and other things during the fast, then she will have to follow it for the rest of her life. Fena (a form of vermicelli which is also used in Falooda although it is much thinner than vermicelli) is prepared by the mother-in-law for her daughter-in-law as a pre-dawn meal.
Fasting begins with sunrise in the morning. Women apply henna to their hair, hands, and feet. She spends her entire day with her friends and relatives with laughter and joy. They exchange some painted clay pots (karvas) filled with bangles, bindis, ribbons, sweets, homemade candies, cosmetic items, handkerchiefs, etc., among their married friends and relatives. Married women also get some gifts from their parents and husband.
In the evening, she takes a bath, gets dressed well, and takes part in the ceremony together with the women of the communities. She performs puja with a lot of preparation, listens to the story of Karwa Chauth, sings songs, etc. According to their culture and tradition, women who keep fast in UP and Bihar sit in a circle with a puja plate, one of them (mostly the eldest woman or a priest) story of Karwa Chauth (Gauri, Ganesh, and Shankar ), and then she sings the song of Karwa Chauth, putting pheri (changing their plates in a circle with each other) seven times. There are some restrictions that should be followed by fasting women, such as weaving clothes, asking for a vow for someone, praising someone, waking someone up from the bed.
She performs full seven rounds, in the first six rounds, she sings like “Veeron kundiya karva, Sarva suhagan karva, ae Katti Naya Teri na, Kumbh chakra pheri na, aar paar payen na, ruthda maaniyen na, sutra jagayen na, ve Get the heroic kuriye karva, they sarv suhagan karva” while in the seventh pheri “the heroes get kuriye karva, Sarva suhagan karva, a Katti Naya Teri ni, Kumbh chakra pheri Bhi, r pair payen Bhi, ruthda maniyen Bhi, sutra jagayen bhi, they hero kuriye karva. She sings sarva suhagan karva.
There is another ritual in Rajasthan, the fasting woman is asked by another woman “Dhapi ki Nahi dhapi” (meaning satisfied or not?) She replies “Jal se dhapi, suhaag se na dhapi” (with water). satisfied
I have happened, not my husband). In other regions of Uttar Pradesh, there is a separate “Gaur Mata” worship ritual. The woman takes some soil, sprinkles water on it, on which kumkum is applied and treated like an idol (ie fertile motherland).
She also sings songs while changing her karva thali, like, “Get married always, get husband’s beloved, get seven sisters’ sisters done, fasting, get mother-in-law’s, beloved”. After the puja, she gives the idol to her mother-in-law or Nanda by offering some prasad like halwa, puri, mathri, namkeen, sweets (also known as Bayana).
After the puja ceremony, the women wait for the moon to rise so that they can eat and drink. When the moon is seen in the sky, all the women, who have kept a fast with their husbands, outside their house or outside their house or at the top of the house, see the moon through a sieve on the top of the house or its reflection in a vessel filled with water. She turns to him to see her husband in the same way as she had seen the moon by offering arghya to the moon to get blessings.
Now it is time for all the sweethearts to break the fast by taking some sweets and water from the hands of their husbands. Finally, after the whole day, the husband takes sweets and a glass of water from the plate of worship and drinks it with his own hands. After breaking the fast, the woman can eat her entire diet at night.
