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Name of the
festival
Karva Chauth
Date of Celebration
In 2012, it was celebrated on November 02. The fast of
Karwa Chauth is kept 9 days before Diwali. It falls on the fourth day of the
Kartik month by the Hindu calendar, i.e. the fourth day of the waning moon or
the dark fortnight.
Objective
The married women pray for the welfare and long life of
their husbands. The festival is followed mainly in the northern parts of the
country.
Description
Karva Chauth is an annual one-day festival celebrated by Hindu women in North
India, The married women in the Indian state of Punjab, Haryana, New Delhi and
parts of UP and Rajasthan keep fast from sunrise to moonrise for the safety
and longevity of their husbands. The festival falls on the fourth day after
the full moon, in the Hindu lunisolar calendar month of Kartik. Karva is
another word for Matkaa or Ghadaa, a small earthen water-pot, 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 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 also
sometimes called karvas, so the fast may also have begun as a prayer for a
good harvest in this predominantly wheat-eating region. Women begin preparing
for Karva Chauth a few days in advance, by buying cosmetics (shringar
samagri), traditional adornments or jewellery, and puja items, such as the
karwa lamps, matthi, henna and the decorated puja thali (plate). In the
evening, a community women-only ceremony is held. Women dress in fine clothing
and wear jewellery and henna, and (in some regions) dress in the complete
finery of their wedding dresses. The dresses (saris or shalwars) are
frequently red, gold or orange in color, which are considered auspicious
colours. Once the moon is visible, it is customary for a fasting woman, with
her husband nearby, to view its reflection in a vessel filled with water,
through a sieve, or through the cloth of a dupatta.
