ಕರವಾ ಚೌತ್ | Karva Chauth

Karva Chauth is a fast kept by married women for the long life of their husbands. It falls on the fourth tithi of the dark fortnight that follows Sharad Purnima. That fortnight is Kartika krishna paksha in the North’s purnimanta reckoning, and Ashwayuja krishna paksha in the amanta calendar of Karnataka; the day is the same in both, and only the month’s name differs. Karva is the clay pot at the centre of the rite and chauth is the fourth, and almanacs also call the day Karak Chaturthi. It is kept chiefly in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Madhya Pradesh, and by families from those states wherever they now live.

How the day is kept

The fast begins before dawn, after the sargi, a meal sent or prepared by the mother-in-law. In Punjab it always includes fenia, fine vermicelli; in parts of Uttar Pradesh feni with milk and sugar is eaten the evening before instead. Through the day the woman takes no food, and in the strict form no water. Shiva and his family, Ganesha among them, are worshipped, and the baya, a plate of sweets and savouries, is offered and then given to the mother-in-law or a sister-in-law.

In the evening the women who are fasting gather and sit in a circle with decorated puja thalis, the karva before them. An older woman or a priest tells the katha in parts, and the women sing between the parts; in parts of Uttar Pradesh the thalis are passed round the circle seven times. When the Moon rises it is looked at through a sieve and offered water, and the husband is then looked at through the same sieve. Drik Panchang notes that the karva is the pot from which the water is offered. The fast is broken from the husband’s hand, with the first sip of water.

The story

The story most often told is of Veeravati, whose seven brothers could not bear to see her hungry and showed her a false moon through the trees. She broke the fast, and word came that her husband was dying. She kept the vrata whole the next year and he was given back to her. Other tellings are told as well: of a woman named Karva who bound a crocodile that had seized her husband and would not let Yama spare it, and of Draupadi keeping the fast on Krishna’s advice while Arjuna was away.

Which day Anudina gives

Because the fast ends at moonrise, the day is fixed by the Moon. Anudina gives Karva Chauth on the day whose moonrise falls within the Chaturthi of this dark fortnight, and it prints the time of moonrise at the reader’s place as the time to break the fast. In 2026 that is 29 October, and in 2027 it is 18 October.

Anudina shows Karva Chauth under the North Indian custom, and under the South Indian custom when “Show festivals of other regions too” is turned on.

In the South, and the days around it

The same tithi, chosen by the same moonrise test, is Sankashti Chaturthi, and in Karnataka that is how most households know the day: as Ganesha’s monthly fast, broken when the Moon is seen. Drik Panchang notes that the two coincide. Andhra Pradesh keeps a kindred women’s vrata of its own in the same fortnight, Atla Taddi.

Karva Chauth opens the run of days that leads to Deepavali. Ahoi Ashtami, the mothers’ fast for their children, usually follows four days later, and Dhanteras and Naraka Chaturdashi close the fortnight.