Ask a Hindu grandmother why she is not eating on a Monday and she will not say she is fasting. She will say she "has a vrat". The difference is not a quibble. A diet is something you do to your body; a vrat is something you promise to God, and the body is simply where the promise is kept.
The word vrat comes from a Sanskrit root meaning to choose, to will, to vow. Its companion word, upavasa, which most Indian languages use for the fast itself, means literally "dwelling near": upa, near; vasa, to stay. On a fast day, the tradition says, you stay near God. The skipped meal is the least of it.
Fasting as a vow
A vrat usually has three parts. There is the restriction, which may be food, water, sleep or speech. There is the devotion: a puja, a reading of the deity's story (the vrat katha), a visit to the temple, extra japa. And there is the sankalpa, the stated intention at the start: "I undertake this vrat for this deity, for this purpose, for this period." Without the sankalpa the fast is just hunger; with it, the hunger becomes an offering.
This is why the mood of a vrat day is not grim. The ordinary rhythm of cooking and eating is suspended, and the hours that would have gone to meals go instead to prayer, reading or simply a quieter mind.
The common vrats
No one keeps every fast day in the Hindu calendar. The ones most families know:
- Ekadashi, the eleventh day of each lunar fortnight, so twice a month. Sacred to Vishnu, and the most widely observed vrat. Grains and pulses are given up; the fast is broken the next morning. One Ekadashi in the summer month of Jyeshtha is kept nirjala, without water, and is traditionally said to carry the merit of all the others.
- Pradosh, the thirteenth day of each fortnight, sacred to Shiva. The fast lasts until the evening twilight, when Shiva is worshipped with bilva leaves and a lamp.
- Monday (Somvar), for Shiva. Many keep the solah somvar, sixteen consecutive Mondays, for a particular wish. In the monsoon month of Shravan the Mondays are especially prized, and many people give up meat, alcohol and sometimes grain for the whole month.
- Tuesday (Mangalvar), for Hanuman, often with a reading of the Hanuman Chalisa and a single evening meal.
- Karva Chauth, kept chiefly by married women in North India in the month of Kartik. It is a nirjala fast from sunrise until the moon is sighted, for the husband's long life. The day begins with sargi, a pre-dawn meal traditionally sent by the mother-in-law, and ends with the moon seen through a sieve and the first sip of water from the husband's hand.
- Navaratri, the nine nights of the Goddess in autumn and again in spring. Some fast all nine days on fruit and milk; many keep the first and last days; others simply eat satvik food, without onion, garlic, meat or alcohol, for the duration.
Thursday for Vishnu and the guru, Friday for the Goddess in her various forms, and Saturday for Shani are also widely kept.
Kinds of fast, and what is usually permitted
"Fasting" covers a range of practices, and the strictness is chosen to suit the person and the day.
- Nirjala: no food and no water, usually from sunrise to a fixed point such as moonrise or the next dawn. Reserved for a few days a year and for those in good health.
- Phalahar: literally "fruit food". Fruit, milk, curd, nuts and certain non-grain foods are taken; cooked grain is not.
- Ekabhukta, one meal: a single full meal, usually in the evening after puja, with nothing but water or tea before it.
- Satvik: no fasting as such, but the diet is restricted to simple vegetarian food with no onion, garlic, meat, eggs or alcohol. Shravan and Navaratri are often kept like this.
Rules differ from house to house, and the only safe guide is to ask your own elders. Still, across most of North and West India the "fasting foods" are fairly consistent: fruit, milk and milk products, nuts, potatoes and sweet potatoes, sabudana (tapioca pearls), kuttu (buckwheat) and singhara (water chestnut) flours, amaranth (rajgira), and rock salt (sendha namak) in place of ordinary salt. Rice, wheat, lentils, ordinary salt, onion and garlic are set aside.
In the South the categories are a little different; many families avoid rice on Ekadashi but take other foods freely, while others keep to a single meal.
Breaking the fast
The ending of a vrat is as important as the beginning, and it has a name, parana. The fast is closed at a prescribed time, often the next morning after sunrise, with a short puja and the first food taken as prasad. On Ekadashi the parana falls on the following day, Dwadashi, and the almanac gives a window of a few hours within which it should be done. Karva Chauth is broken at moonrise. Pradosh is broken after the evening worship.
Break the fast gently. A glass of water, a little fruit or a small quantity of the food that has been offered, then a normal meal later. Elders advise against ending a fast with a feast, and the body agrees with them.
The rationale, and who is excused
The spiritual reasoning is simple. Appetite is the most insistent of the body's demands, and the one most tangled up with habit. To set it aside by choice, even for a day, is to practise being the master of the body rather than its servant. The Bhagavad Gita is careful to warn against excess in either direction:
Yoga is not for one who eats too much, nor for one who does not eat at all; not for one who sleeps too much, nor for one who stays always awake. (Bhagavad Gita 6.16)
Fasting as the Gita understands it is moderation, not mortification.
The health reasoning is best stated modestly. A day on fruit and water is traditionally said to rest the digestion, lighten the body and clear the mind. Those are the experiences people report, and they are reason enough.
The tradition has never asked the vulnerable to go hungry. The traditional law texts exempt the sick, the pregnant and nursing, the very young and the very old, and they offer alternatives: feeding the poor, extra japa, charity, or a milder form of the fast. Children are not expected to fast at all, though many like to "keep" a small fast by giving up a sweet. Anyone taking regular medication or managing a condition such as diabetes should speak to their doctor and choose a form of vrat that does not interfere with treatment; this is not a lapse of faith but ordinary good sense.
A vrat broken for a good reason carries no fault. Tradition holds that the sankalpa, the intention, is what God receives.
A simple way to begin
Pick one day that suits you: Ekadashi if you are drawn to Vishnu, Monday if to Shiva, Tuesday if to Hanuman. On the morning, light a lamp and say aloud why you are keeping the fast. Eat fruit and milk through the day, or one simple meal in the evening, and give the saved time to a short reading or japa. Break it the next morning with water and a piece of fruit, offered first. The vow, not the hunger, is the practice.