Annual · August–September
Also known as Hartalika Vrat
When it's kept
Recurring or moving vrats are best checked against this month's panchang for the exact next date.
Significance
Hartalika Teej is kept by married women for their husband's long life and marital happiness, and by unmarried women praying for a husband as devoted as Shiva. It commemorates Goddess Parvati's own penance to win Shiva as her husband, making it one of the more rigorous vrats of the year.
The story
The Shiva Purana recounts that Parvati's father, Himavan, intended to marry her to Vishnu, but Parvati's heart was set on Shiva. Her close friend spirited her away into a forest — 'harat' (abduction) by an 'aalika' (female friend) gives the vrat its name — where Parvati performed severe penance, fasting without food or water, until Shiva appeared and agreed to marry her. Devotees fast in remembrance of that penance.
Rituals
Across India
Most widely observed in North India — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh — often kept alongside female relatives and friends as a shared, day-long observance rather than a solitary one.
Questions
'Harat' means abduction and 'aalika' means female friend — the name recalls Parvati's friend spiriting her into the forest so she could perform penance to marry Shiva rather than the husband her father had chosen.
Many observe it as a strict nirjala fast without food or water from the previous evening; others keep a less rigorous version. It is considered one of the more demanding vrats of the year.
It falls the day immediately before Ganesh Chaturthi on the Hindu calendar (Bhadrapada Shukla Tritiya, one day ahead of Chaturthi), though the two observances are otherwise unconnected in ritual.
Book a pooja in your name, or check this month’s panchang for the exact next date.
