Vrats and fasting days

Recurring observances, with their next dates for New Delhi. Where a fast's ending depends on moonrise or a parana window, that time is local — and it moves by more than half an hour across India on the same evening.

Smarta and Vaishnava practice genuinely differ on some of these — Ekadashi most of all. Tell us your tradition and we'll say when the two diverge instead of quietly picking one.

Purnima

monthly

The monthly full moon. Kept with a fast in many households, and very commonly with the Satyanarayana vrata katha.

How this vrat is kept →

Sankashti Chaturthi

monthly

The monthly Ganesha fast, broken after sighting the moon and offering arghya. The Chaturthi falling on a Tuesday is Angarki Sankashti and is kept more widely.

How this vrat is kept →

Ekadashi

twice each lunar month

The fortnightly fast of Vishnu. Twenty-four in an ordinary year, twenty-six when an adhika masa falls, each with its own name and katha.

How this vrat is kept →

Pradosh Vrat

twice each lunar month

The twice-monthly Shiva observance, kept in the ninety minutes around sunset with abhisheka and the Pradosha stotra.

How this vrat is kept →

Masik Shivaratri

monthly

The monthly night of Shiva: a lighter form of the Maha Shivaratri observance, kept with a fast and worship in the nishita watch.

How this vrat is kept →

Amavasya

monthly

The monthly new moon: the day for ancestral offerings — tarpana and where kept, shraddha. Mahalaya Amavasya in Ashvina is the year's principal one.

How this vrat is kept →

Shashti

monthly

The monthly observance of Kartikeya. The Kartika Skanda Shashti is the annual six-day form, concluding in the Soorasamharam.

How this vrat is kept →