Hartalika Teej: The Fast Parvati Kept First

Hartalika Teej falls on the third tithi, the third lunar day, of the waxing fortnight of Bhadrapada, which places it in late August or September and always on the day before Ganesh Chaturthi. It is the hardest of the women's fasts in the Hindu calendar, kept without food and without water for a full day and through the night that follows.

The date moves every year with the lunar month, so take it from your own panchang rather than from memory.

Who Was Carried Away

The name is the story. Harat means carried off, and aalika means a friend, and together they describe what happened to Parvati.

Parvati had set her mind on Shiva and was practising austerities to win him, and her father Himavan had arranged her marriage to Vishnu instead. Her friend took her into the forest and hid her in a cave so the wedding could not take place. There she made a shivling from the sand of the riverbank, kept a fast without food or water, and stayed awake the whole night in worship. Shiva appeared before dawn and accepted her, and her father relented.

Every element of the modern rite is in that account: the sand shivling, the waterless fast, the night kept awake, and the friend, whose part is remembered in the women who keep the vrat together rather than alone.

Who Keeps It and For What

Unmarried women keep it for a husband of their own choosing, which is the point of the story rather than an add-on to it. Married women keep it for the long life and wellbeing of the husband they have.

The fast is nirjala, without water. It begins before sunrise and is broken only the next morning, after the night vigil and the final puja. Sand or clay images of Shiva and Parvati are made and worshipped through the night, songs are sung, the katha is read, and the women stay awake together. New clothes, usually green, and mehndi and full ornament are part of it, because the vrat is a wedding rite in spirit as much as a fast.

A waterless fast for a day and a night is a real physical demand, and the tradition has always allowed a lighter keeping for anyone who is pregnant, unwell, elderly or advised against it. Fruit and water in place of nothing is the usual accommodation, and the vow is not counted broken by it.

Three Teejs, One Season

Three festivals in the same season share the name and are constantly confused with each other. Teej means the third lunar day, so all three fall on a Tritiya, and the difference is which month and which half:

• Hariyali Teej, in the waxing fortnight of Shravan, the green Teej of the early monsoon, kept with swings and a light fast.
• Kajari Teej, in the waning fortnight of Bhadrapada, kept mainly across eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.
• Hartalika Teej, in the waxing fortnight of Bhadrapada, the waterless one, the day before Ganesh Chaturthi.

If someone in your family says simply "Teej", the region usually settles which one is meant. Rajasthan tends to mean Hariyali, and much of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and the Deccan tends to mean Hartalika.

The Part of the Chart the Vrat Is Aimed At

The vrat is about a marriage: getting one, or protecting one. Both of those have addresses in a birth chart, and knowing which of them is actually under strain changes what is worth doing about it.

The 7th house holds the spouse and the marriage itself, and the condition of its ruler is the first thing read when a marriage is late, difficult or unsettled. Jupiter carries the husband in a woman's chart, and Venus carries the wife in a man's, so those two are read for what kind of partner the chart is drawn toward. Mars is the planet of heat and friction, and when it sits in certain houses the chart is said to carry Mangal Dosha, which is the single most common reason a horoscope match is refused in India.

Mangal Dosha is worth checking rather than fearing, because it is asserted far more often than it holds. It has clear cancellation rules, several of them common, and a great many charts said to carry it do not carry it once those are applied. Our page on Mangal Dosha sets out how it is read and when it cancels, and there is a free Mangal Dosha check that runs it from birth details in under a minute.

For a match already under discussion, the free kundli matching gives the traditional eight-fold compatibility score along with what each part of it is measuring. Keeping a fast for a marriage and never having looked at the chart of the marriage is a strange order to do things in.

What the Day Asks of You

Keep it with other women if you can, because the friend in the story is not decoration. Make the sand shivling, hear the katha rather than summarise it, and stay awake as long as you genuinely can, which is the tradition's own standard and not an excuse.

Break the fast the next morning after the final puja. If health means keeping it on fruit and water, keep it on fruit and water. Parvati's vow was about steadiness of intent, and nothing in the story turns on how much she suffered.