The fasts the month is built on, and how one is actually kept
A vrat is not going without food. It is a day given a shape — a vow said out loud in the morning, a restraint held until evening, something recited, something given away, and a proper breaking. The going-without is only the part that shows.
The six the tradition keeps every month
This is a default, not your place. Set it so the tithi and the muhurtas are your own.
Ekadashi
in 14 daysThe eleventh tithi, twice a month — the tradition's regular fast. Physiologically a rest for the body, and structurally a rehearsal in wanting something and not taking it.
What the day asks: Fast as your health allows, and only as it allows. If you cannot fast, then give up one thing you would ordinarily take.
Pradosh
in 2 daysThe thirteenth tithi at dusk — the twilight window sacred to Shiva.
What the day asks: At dusk, a lamp and stillness. Fifteen minutes is enough.
Purnima
in 4 daysThe full moon. The mind is at its most expanded and least contained — the tradition's month-long high tide.
What the day asks: Charity, and something collective. Do not make a large decision tonight; you will feel more certain than the evidence warrants.
Amavasya
in 18 daysThe new moon. The month's lowest point and the day given to the ancestors.
What the day asks: Offer water to the pitris with their names said aloud. Rest. Begin nothing; the tradition asks for silence here rather than effort.
Sankashti Chaturthi
in 8 daysThe fourth tithi after the full moon, for Ganesha — the day for obstacles specifically.
What the day asks: Name one obstacle plainly. Do the smallest possible thing about it today rather than the largest.
Masik Shivaratri
in 17 daysThe fourteenth tithi of the dark fortnight — Shivaratri, every month. The great one in Phalguna is this same night at its strongest.
What the day asks: Keep the evening quiet. Om Namah Shivaya, for as long as you can hold it.
VEDAUM does not print a fixed table of dates. Each of these falls on a tithi, so its civil date moves every month and differs by where you stand — the calendar computes it for your own place.
And the one your chart leans toward
The six above are kept by everyone. The vrat your own chart leans toward needs your birth details — they stay yours, and nothing here is ever sold.
Cast a free kundali →How a vrat is actually kept
- Sankalpa — say it. A vrat begins with the vow spoken aloud, in your own words: what you are keeping, and until when. That is the whole difference between a vrat and a skipped meal.
- Ahara — the food rule, at your own rung. The tradition grades it: nirjala without even water, phalahara of fruit and milk, or one cooked meal after sunset. Take the rung your body can hold all day, not the one that sounds most impressive.
- Japa — the day needs something in it. An empty stomach with an empty day is only hunger. A mala, a stotra, a chapter read — the restraint is meant to make room for something.
- Dana — it ends outside you. What was not eaten is classically given away: food to someone who is hungry today, not a coin into a box. This is the part that makes a vrat an act in the world.
- Parana — break it properly. The breaking is part of the observance, not the end of it. Break it in the window the tradition names — for Ekadashi, in the Dvadashi that follows — and break it with something light. A fast broken badly costs more than it gave.
A vrat is a rhythm, never a payment. Nothing here is owed, nothing is bought, and no graha is being appeased. VEDAUM will not tell you that a fast removes a period, cancels a dosha or buys an outcome — that sentence is how fasting is sold, and it is banned here. You keep a vrat because a day with a shape in it is a better day.
And fasting is a body act, so it carries the body's limits. It is genuinely unsafe in pregnancy, with diabetes, with any eating disorder, on most medication schedules, for children, and for anyone already unwell. The tradition grades its own fasts precisely because not every body can keep the strictest one — and where a fast would harm you, its own answer is to give instead of go without. VEDAUM does not prescribe, and never asks anyone to prove they fasted.
Keep one. Not six, and not the strictest — one, for three months, on a day you can actually hold. A rhythm you keep is worth more than a discipline you admire.