ಕಾರಡೈಯಾನ್ ನೋಂಬು | Karadaiyan Nombu

Karadaiyan Nombu is a vow kept by Tamil women at the moment the Tamil month of Masi ends and Panguni begins, which is the moment the sun passes from Kumbha into Meena, the Meena sankramana, in the middle of March. Nombu means a vow or fast, and the karadai is the small steamed cake of rice and cowpeas made for it. Married women keep it for the long life of their husbands and for never being separated from them, and unmarried girls keep it praying for a good husband. It is also called Savitri Vratam.

Savitri

The nombu recalls Savitri, who followed Yama as he carried away the life of her husband Satyavan, and would not turn back. Yama granted her boons but not her husband’s life, until she asked for a hundred sons, which could not be given unless Satyavan lived, and he was restored to her. The Tamil tradition holds that she won him back at this junction of the months. The same story lies behind the Vata Savitri vrata of the North, kept on the new moon the North counts as Jyeshtha’s, which is Vaishakha amavasya in the amanta calendar, and behind its southern and western form, Vata Purnima, on the full moon of Jyeshtha. The heroine is the same; the days are not, one being fixed by the moon and this one by the sun.

How it is kept

The fast begins at sunrise on the day of the sankramana and is kept without food until the puja. Two kinds of karadai are made from rice flour and cowpeas, karamani: a sweet one with jaggery and coconut, and a savoury one with salt and green chilli. They are offered with butter that has not been melted, with betel leaves and areca nut, bananas and flowers, to the goddess, worshipped as Gauri or, in some families, as Kamakshi. A Tamil verse is said with the offering, whose sense is: I offer you unmelted butter and an adai; may my husband never leave me.

The yellow thread, the manjal saradu or nombu charadu, is then tied round the neck. In some families the husband ties it for a married woman; an unmarried girl ties it herself or her mother ties it for her. Some families also tie one round the image of the goddess or the tulasi plant. The fast is broken with the karadai only after the thread is on.

Which day Anudina gives, and the moment

Karadaiyan Nombu is the only observance Anudina keeps at an instant rather than by a tithi or a whole day. What matters is the moment of the Meena sankramana, whatever the hour, and that moment can fall in the afternoon, in the evening or after midnight.

Anudina gives the panchanga day that holds the moment, counting the day as the panchanga does, from one sunrise to the next, and shows the moment itself as the time of the observance. The fast runs from that day’s sunrise to the moment. So when the sankramana falls after midnight, the nombu belongs to the calendar date before it. In 2026 the sun entered Meena a little after one o’clock in the morning of 15 March, Indian time, and the nombu fell on 14 March, as Drik Panchang also gave it for Chennai. The next date Anudina gives is 15 March 2027. It is listed among the Tamil observances: it appears under the South setting, and elsewhere when festivals of other regions are turned on.

Families differ on what to do with a late moment. Some keep the puja and the tying of the thread at the moment itself, even after midnight. Others hold that the thread should be tied while Masi is still running and that a puja in the middle of the night is not proper, and so they finish in the evening, before the month turns. Both practices are kept. A household should follow its own; the time Anudina prints is the moment the month turns, which both practices take as their mark.