Recurring / Seasonal · July–August
Also known as Shravan Somvar Vrat · Kanwar Somvar
When it's kept
Recurring or moving vrats are best checked against this month's panchang for the exact next date.
Significance
Shravan is considered Lord Shiva's most sacred month, and every Monday within it is kept as a fast day in his honour — the single most widely observed recurring Shiva-vrat of the year, drawing enormous temple crowds and the Kanwar Yatra pilgrimage.
The story
Shravan's sanctity for Shiva devotees is most often traced to the Samudra Manthan, the churning of the cosmic ocean, in which Shiva drank the world-threatening poison that emerged to protect all beings; the month is kept as a season of gratitude and worship in response, with Monday — Shiva's own day of the week — observed most intensively of all.
Rituals
Across India
Observed across nearly all of Hindu India, with North India's Kanwar Yatra — lakhs of saffron-clad pilgrims walking to the Ganga and back to their local Shiva temple — as its most visible large-scale expression; South India keeps the month with equally devoted but quieter temple worship.
Questions
Typically four or five, depending on how the lunar month of Shravan aligns with the Gregorian calendar in a given year — the exact Mondays are read off that year's panchang.
A pilgrimage undertaken mainly during Shravan, in which devotees (Kanwariyas) carry Ganga water on foot, often over long distances, to offer at a Shiva temple — closely associated with the Sawan Somvar observance.
Yes — Sawan Somvar is specifically the Mondays that fall within the month of Shravan each year, while Solah Somvar Vrat is a fixed run of sixteen consecutive Mondays that can be started in any month, most often beginning in Shravan.
Book a pooja in your name, or check this month’s panchang for the exact next date.
