Karva Chauth 2026
29 October 2026

Karva Chauth is Kartik Krishna Chaturthi in the Purnimanta calendar of the north, the fourth day after the Sharad Purnima. Married women keep a nirjala vrat (without food or water) from before sunrise until the moon rises, for their husband’s long life and the wellbeing of the home, and break it at moonrise after offering arghya to Chandra. The day takes its name from the karva, the earthen pot with a spout used in the puja.

The day begins with sargi, the meal a mother-in-law sends or serves before dawn. In the evening the women gather, dressed as suhagans, for the puja and the katha, passing their thalis around the circle. At moonrise each woman looks at the moon through a chhalni (sieve), then at her husband, offers arghya from the karva, and takes her first sip of water from her husband’s hand.

• Karva (earthen pot) with a spout and a lid
• Chhalni (sieve)
• Image of Karva Mata
• Clay for making Gauri
• Roli, akshat, sindoor and kalava
• Diya and ghee
• Puja thali with sweets and mathri
• Lota of water for arghya
• Sargi: fruit, dry fruits, pheniyan, mathri
• Baya for the mother-in-law
• Red chunari and shringar

Source: Folk tradition of North India, told at the evening puja; versions differ from family to family

Veeravati was the only sister of seven brothers, who loved her dearly. She kept her first Karva Chauth at her parents’ home, and by evening she was faint with hunger and thirst. Her brothers could not bear to see her suffer. They lit a fire behind a tree on a hill (in some tellings they held a lamp behind a sieve) so that it looked like the rising moon, and told her the moon was out.

Veeravati offered arghya to the false moon and broke her fast. At the first bites came bad omens, and then the news that her husband had died. Grieving, she learned that she had broken her vrat before the true moon rose. In the version told most often, she kept watch over her husband through the year and kept every Chauth vrat faithfully, and on the next Karva Chauth, by the grace of the goddess (Indrani in some tellings, Mata Parvati in others), her husband was restored to life.

Another story often told is of Karva, a devoted wife whose husband was seized by a crocodile while bathing in the river. She bound the crocodile with a cotton thread and went to Yama, asking him to take the crocodile and spare her husband. Moved by her devotion, Yama gave her husband a long life.

What to do

• Eat sargi before sunrise, so the day-long fast is easier to keep.
• Check the moonrise time for your own city, since the moon rises at different times in different places and the vrat is broken only when you see it.
• If you are unwell, pregnant or nursing, it is common for elders to allow water or phalahar; the vrat is kept in the bhav, and your health comes first.
• If clouds hide the moon, follow your family’s custom, such as offering arghya in the moon’s direction at the time it rises in your city.

What to avoid

• Don’t break the vrat before the moon is truly seen, the very mistake the Veeravati katha warns of.
• Black and white clothes are usually kept aside; red and bright colours are worn as the marks of a suhagan.
• Some families avoid sewing and cutting cloth on this day; follow your own family’s custom.

Karva Chauth is kept mainly in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal, and is also called Karak Chaturthi. It falls on the same Chaturthi as the Sankashti Chaturthi of Ganesh, so some homes worship Ganesh with Gauri at the evening puja.

The same day is Ashwin Krishna Chaturthi in the Amanta calendars of Gujarat, Maharashtra and the south, since those months end on Amavasya; only the month name differs. The day is the one on which the Chaturthi holds at moonrise, read at each place’s own moonrise, which is also why the time of breaking the vrat differs from city to city and between India and abroad.