Why do Hindus fast? What is a vrat?

Vaishnava (Ekadashi)

For Vaishnavas the chief vrat is Ekadashi, the eleventh day of each half of the lunar month. Grains are not eaten, the day is spent in prayer and the names of Vishnu, and the fast is broken the next morning within a set time (parana). Vaikuntha Ekadashi, in the month of Margazhi, is the most honoured of them in the Vishnu temples of South India. When Ekadashi spans two days, Smartas and Vaishnavas may keep it on different days.

Sources for this reading

• R. E. Enthoven, The Folklore of Bombay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923), “The Moon”: people fast on the eleventh day of each month, and when Ekadashi falls on two consecutive days “the Smartas … observe the first, while the Bhagvats, i. e. worshippers of Vishnu, observe the second” (p. 56); fasts on the thirteenth (Pradosha) and fourteenth (Shivaratra) of the dark half (p. 54). Enthoven died 1952: public domain. Title page, leaf n5. p. 56 checked on the page image (leaf n60); p. 54 read in the OCR. (pp. 54 and 56 (leaf n60))
• Festival guide “Vaikuntha Ekadashi” in this library, which names the Padma Purana story and the Sri Vaishnava temple tradition, and the Pujadeep calendar rules ekadashi and vaikuntha-ekadashi, with the Smarta and Vaishnava rules and the parana window.

Shaiva

Shaivas keep Maha Shivaratri with a fast and a night of worship, offering water and bilva leaves to the linga through the four watches of the night. Many also keep Pradosh, at dusk on the thirteenth day of each lunar half-month, and the monthly Shivaratri. A well-known Shivaratri story tells of a hunter who, without knowing it, kept the vigil and the fast.

Sources for this reading

• Festival guide “Maha Shivaratri” in this library, with the Pujadeep calendar rules maha-shivaratri, masik-shivaratri, pradosh-shukla and pradosh-krishna; and the festival guide “Pradosh Vrat” (Trayodashi, at twilight).
• R. E. Enthoven, The Folklore of Bombay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923): the hunter of the Shivaratri-mahatmya who fasted without meaning to and let bel leaves fall on a linga below his tree (pp. 63–64). Enthoven died 1952: public domain. Read in the OCR; summarised. (pp. 63–64)

Shakta and household vows

Shakta families fast through the nine nights of Navratri, in spring and autumn, often eating only fruit or one meal and ending with the worship of young girls as the Goddess. Many married women keep Karwa Chauth from sunrise until moonrise, for their husbands' long life, as the vow's own story says; others keep it in other ways or not at all. Before the evening prayers, the women of the house often gather to hear an elder woman or a priest tell the vow's story (vrat katha).

Sources for this reading

• Festival guides “Navratri” and “Karwa Chauth” in this library, with the Pujadeep calendar rules navratri-sharad, navratri-chaitra and karva-chauth.
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Karva Chauth” (married women fast from sunrise to moonrise and pray for their husbands' long life; some unmarried women and some husbands also fast; the women of the household “gather to hear an elderly woman or a priest recite the vrata katha”). Read in the Wayback Machine copy (snapshot March 18, 2026). Cited, not copied.

Bhagavad Gita and the epic (moderation and rule)

The Gita asks for balance: yoga “is not his … who eats too much, nor his who eats not at all”, but belongs to one “who takes due food and exercise” (6.16–17, Telang). In the Mahabharata, Yudhishthira remarks that people of every order keep fasts and asks why; Bhishma answers with the teaching of the sage Angiras on fasts kept by rule. Here fasting is a vow kept by rule, with set limits.

Sources for this reading

• Bhagavad Gita, 6.16
• Bhagavad Gita, 6.17
• The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, translated into English prose (K. M. Ganguli), published by Protap Chandra Roy: Anusasana Parva (Calcutta: Bharata Press, 1893) (Section CVI, p. 520 (leaf n535), checked on the page image: Yudhishthira asks why fasts are kept by all orders of men; Bhishma answers with what Angiras taught him on fasts “according to the ordinance”, with the number of nights allowed; summarised, not quoted)
• Kisari Mohan Ganguli (tr.), The Mahabharata, Project Gutenberg transcription, vol. 4, Anusasana Parva, section CVI (the same section, same numbering as the printing). Summarised, not quoted. (Anusasana Parva, section CVI)

Sources

• Pujadeep calendar rules ekadashi, pradosh-shukla, pradosh-krishna, masik-shivaratri, purnima-vrat and sankashti-chaturthi. The day and the parana time of every vrat come only from this calendar, for the reader's city.
• Bhagavad Gita, 6.16
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Karva Chauth”: “vrata is Sanskrit for ‘vow’ and may be used to signify fasts”. Read in the Wayback Machine copy (snapshot March 18, 2026). Cited, not copied.
• Hindu Mythology, Vedic and Puranic, by W. J. Wilkins (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink; London: W. Thacker, 1882) (“Durga”, p. 266 (leaf n285): “every day witnesses the payment of vows made to this goddess when some desired good is granted”; read in the OCR)
• Festival guides “Vaikuntha Ekadashi”, “Navratri” and “Karwa Chauth” in this library: no grains on Ekadashi; fruit, milk or one meal in Navratri; no food or water on Karwa Chauth; the katha and the parana of each.

More questions

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