Karva Chauth

Karva Chauth
Woman looking through a sieve after completing the fast, first looking at the rising moon and then at her spouse.
Observed by	Married Hindu women
Type	Hindu Holiday
Celebrations	1 day
Observances	Fasting by married women
Begins	Fourth day of the waning moon fortnight (Krishna paksha) in the month of Kartik
Date	October/November
2016 date	19 October (Wednesday)
Related to	Dussehra and Diwali

Karva Chauth (Hindi: करवा चौथ) is a one-day festival celebrated by Hindu women in many countries in which married women fast from sunrise to moonrise for the safety and longevity of their husbands. The fast is traditionally celebrated in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, parts of Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab. The festival falls on the fourth day after the full moon, in the Hindu lunisolar calendar month of Kartik. Sometimes, unmarried women join the fast for their fiancés or desired husbands.

Karva is another word for 'pot' (a small earthen pot of water) and chauth means 'fourth' in Hindi (a reference to the fact that the festival falls on the fourth day of the dark-fortnight, or krishna paksh, of the month of Kartik). The festival originated and came to be celebrated only in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. One hypothesis is that military campaigns were often conducted by men in far off places whereby men would often leave their wives and children to go off to war. Their wives would often pray for their safe return. The festival also coincides with the wheat-sowing time (i.e., the beginning of the Rabi crop cycle). Big earthen pots in which wheat is stored are sometimes called Karvas, so the fast may have begun as a prayer for a good harvest in this predominantly wheat-eating region.

There is another story about the origin of this festival. Earlier, girls sometimes barely teenagers used to get married, go and live with their in-laws in very remote villages. Everyone would be a stranger there for the new bride. In case she had any problems with her husband or in-laws, she would have no one to talk to or seek support from. Her own parents and relatives would be quite far and unreachable. Telephones, buses and trains were not heard of in those days. People had to walk almost a whole day to go from one place to other. Once the girl left her parent's home for in-laws, she might not be back before long. Thus the custom started that, at the time of marriage, when bride would reach her in-laws, she would befriend another woman there who would be her friend (kangan-saheli) or sister (dharam-behn) for life. It would be similar to god-friends or god-sisters.