ಸೋಮ ಪ್ರದೋಷ | Soma Pradosha

Soma Pradosha is a pradosha that falls on a Monday. Pradosha is the vrata of the trayodashi, the thirteenth tithi, kept twice a lunar month, once in each fortnight, with the worship of Shiva in the short interval after sunset. When that evening falls on Somavara, the day of Soma, the moon, the pradosha takes the weekday’s name. It is not a separate tithi or a separate rite, and it can come in either fortnight and in any month, a few times a year.

Why Monday

Monday is the moon’s day, and Shiva wears the crescent moon in his hair, which is why he is called Chandrashekhara and Someshwara. Monday is therefore kept as Shiva’s day in its own right, and many keep a Monday fast through the year. A pradosha, Shiva’s evening of the fortnight, falling on Shiva’s day of the week is held to be particularly favourable, in the same way that a Somavati Amavasya joins the new moon to the moon’s weekday.

The other weekday pradosha with a name of its own is Shani Pradosha, on a Saturday.

How it is kept

The form is that of every pradosha. Those keeping the vrata bathe early and fast through the day; some take fruit and milk, and grain is avoided until the puja is over. In the evening, in the pradosha hour, Shiva is worshipped at home or in a temple: the linga is bathed with water, milk and curd, sandal paste, bilva leaves and white flowers are offered, a ghee lamp is lit, and the panchakshara, Om Namah Shivaya, is repeated. In Shiva temples this is the hour of the pradosha abhisheka, and Nandi is worshipped with Shiva. The fast is broken after the evening puja, not before.

Soma Pradosha is kept particularly by women, and is commonly undertaken by the unmarried in the hope of a good marriage. Those who work through the day may keep a partial fast, of fruit and milk, and do the puja in the evening.

Which day Anudina gives

Anudina keeps Pradosha on the day on which trayodashi is running at pradosha, just after sunset, and shows the pradosha window and the time after which the fast may be broken. When that day is a Monday it adds Soma Pradosha on the same day, with the same window and the same break. Nothing else about the reckoning changes.

Because the test falls at sunset, which comes at different clock times in different places, a Monday can be Soma Pradosha in one city and not in another. Anudina gives 21 December 2026 as a Soma Pradosha for Udupi, Delhi and Chennai, but not for Kolkata or Guwahati, where the sun sets earlier by the clock; there the next one it gives is 17 May 2027. The place chosen in Anudina therefore decides the date, and two almanacs reckoned for different cities can both be right.

A dark fortnight pradosha is followed the next day by the chaturdashi of Masa Shivaratri, so a Monday Soma Pradosha in the dark half is often the evening before the monthly Shivaratri.