How does one observe Karaka Caturthī Vrata (not a festival), popularly called Karva Cauth?
Start with the name. Karaka (करक) means a water-pot. The Nārada Purāṇa calls it करकाख्यं व्रतम् (karakākhyaṁ vratam), "the vow called Karaka", and the Nirṇayasindhu calls it करकचतुर्थी (karaka-caturthī). The popular spelling "Karka" is a slip: कर्क (karka) means a crab, the sign Cancer.
So this is the vrata of the pot: a pot filled, offered and given away.
When is it observed?
It falls on the Caturthī of the dark fortnight (kṛṣṇa paksha) of Kārttika in the Pūrṇimānta calendar. In the Amānta calendar the same day is Āśvina kṛṣṇa Caturthī. It is one day under two month-names, not two different days.
Which day, when the tithi spans two? The Nirṇayasindhu takes the Caturthī that prevails at moonrise. If it prevails at moonrise on both days, or on neither, the rule for Saṅkaṣṭa Caturthī decides.
What is the vrata for?
Its purpose is saubhāgya: a blessed and harmonious married life. That is the word the Nārada Purāṇa uses when it says no other vrata equals this one for women.
The saṅkalpa spells it out: happiness, saubhāgya, children and grandchildren, and lasting prosperity. The Gaurī mantra asks for saubhāgya and auspicious progeny. And the vrata is offered to Gaṇeśa, Gaurī and Śiva, the divine family.
Women pray that their saubhāgya be akhaṇḍa, unbroken, so that they do not become widows and pass on before their husbands. So the husband's long life is very much part of it. But it is part of saubhāgya, not the whole of it.
Folk customs and the Purāṇic tradition
There are many folk lores associated with this vrata. In different states of Bhārata there are different customs and traditions of celebrating Karaka Caturthī. But let us not forget the Purāṇic traditions.
The sieve, the sargī and the story of the false moon are loving customs, and there is no harm in keeping them. The Nārada Purāṇa passage mentions none of them. Its core is Gaṇeśa, the filled karakas, the giving, and arghya at moonrise.
The Purāṇa gives the adhikāra for this vrata to women. There is nothing wrong if husbands want to fast and observe Karaka Caturthī with their wives.
Is it patriarchy?
It is not that husbands do not pray for their wives. In the Vedic tradition, a married man acquires puṇya by performing his nitya-karma, daily rites like agnihotra or sandhyāvandana. Tradition holds that half of that puṇya goes to the wife. So the husband's prayer is not once a year: it is done daily, and the puṇya is shared.
The Mahābhārata states the principle behind this, in Śakuntalā's words to Duṣyanta:
अर्धं भार्या मनुष्यस्य भार्या श्रेष्ठतमः सखा ।
भार्या मूलं त्रिवर्गस्य भार्या मित्रं मरिष्यतः ॥
ardhaṁ bhāryā manuṣyasya bhāryā śreṣṭhatamaḥ sakhā ।
bhāryā mūlaṁ trivargasya bhāryā mitraṁ mariṣyataḥ ॥
"The wife is half of a man; the wife is his best friend. The wife is the root of dharma, artha and kāma; the wife is a friend even to one who is dying." (Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva 1.68.40, critical edition)
The Purāṇas also give a vrata a husband keeps for his wife: the Aśūnyaśayana Vrata
The vow that "the bed may never be empty" (Skanda Purāṇa, Nāgara-khaṇḍa, Adhyāya 265). Indra himself first kept it, to please Viṣṇu (vv. 21, 34). It begins on the second day after Śrāvaṇa Pūrṇimā, under the nakṣatra of Viṣṇu (v. 23), and is repeated in Bhādrapada, Āśvina and Kārttika (v. 30). Thus is it kept for 4 days in an year and not just once like the Karaka Caturthī
The husband worships Jalaśāyin Viṣṇu at midday and eats food without salt or oil (v. 31). His prayer asks that his householder's life, his Pitṛs, his sacred fires and his devatās not be lost to him through any parting of husband and wife (vv. 25–26), and it rises to this:
लक्ष्म्या वियुज्यसे कृष्ण न कदाचिद्यथा भवान् ।
तथा कलत्रसम्बन्धो देव मा मे प्रणश्यतु ॥
lakṣmyā viyujyase kṛṣṇa na kadācidyathā bhavān ।
tathā kalatrasambandho deva mā me praṇaśyatu ॥
"As you, O Kṛṣṇa, are never parted from Lakṣmī, so, O Lord, may my bond with my wife never perish." (Skanda Purāṇa 6.265.27)
The Purāṇa promises that his bed shall never be empty, birth after birth (v. 34). It speaks of the observer as pumān, a man (v. 35), and only afterwards extends the vrata to women and maidens (vv. 36–38). Karaka Caturthī and Aśūnyaśayana are the same prayer for an unbroken marriage, offered from both sides.
To think that wives alone pray for husbands, and that this is a sign of patriarchy, is only an expression of one's ignorance of the deeper Vedic vision and our traditions.
What the Nārada Purāṇa says
The clearest Purāṇic statement of this vrata is in the Nārada Purāṇa, Pūrva-bhāga, Pāda 4, Adhyāya 113, the chapter on vratas for the Caturthī tithi. Verses 43b–51 describe it.
चतुर्थ्यां कार्तिके कृष्णे करकाख्यं व्रतं स्मृतम् ।
स्त्रीणामेवाधिकारोऽत्र तद्विधानमुदीर्यते ॥
caturthyāṁ kārtike kṛṣṇe karakākhyaṁ vrataṁ smṛtam ।
strīṇām evādhikāro'tra tad-vidhānam udīryate ॥
"On the Caturthī of the dark half of Kārttika, the vow called Karaka is laid down. Women alone are entitled to it; its procedure is now stated." (Nārada Purāṇa, Pūrva-bhāga 113.43b–44a)
The procedure that follows (113.44b–51):
- She bathes and adorns herself.
- She worships Gaṇeśa.
- She fills ten karakas with cooked rice and offers them to him with devotion and a pure mind, praying, "May the deity be gracious unto me."
- She gives gifts to suvāsinīs and brāhmaṇas, as she wishes.
- At moonrise she offers arghya, then eats sweets and cooked rice to complete the vrata.
The Purāṇa also allows an alternative: the karakas may be filled with milk or water, with rice, betel nut and jewels, and gifted to a brāhmaṇa. The vrata is kept for twelve or sixteen years, or for life, and then concluded with udyāpana. It closes by saying that no other vrata equals this one in granting saubhāgya to women.
Notice what the Purāṇa centres on: Gaṇeśa, the filled pots, the giving, and arghya at moonrise.
How to observe it
The fuller household procedure comes from the Vrata-paricaya of Gita Press, Gorakhpur, which credits the Vāmana Purāṇa. Combined with the Nārada Purāṇa, the day runs like this.
At dawn. Rise before sunrise, bathe and get ready. Take the saṅkalpa:
मम सुखसौभाग्यपुत्रपौत्रादिसुस्थिरश्रीप्राप्तये करकचतुर्थीव्रतमहं करिष्ये ।
mama sukha-saubhāgya-putra-pautrādi-susthira-śrī-prāptaye karaka-caturthī-vratam ahaṁ kariṣye ।
"For happiness, saubhāgya, children and grandchildren, and lasting prosperity, I shall observe the Karaka Caturthī vrata."
Through the day. Keep a nirjala fast, taking neither food nor a drop of water from sunrise to moonrise.
In the evening. Draw a peepal tree in white sand and place images or pictures of Lord Śiva, Mother Pārvatī and Lord Kārttikeya. Following the Nārada Purāṇa, begin with Gaṇeśa and offer him the karakas. Then invoke Gaurī with:
नमः शिवायै शर्वाण्यै सौभाग्यं संततिं शुभाम् ।
प्रयच्छ भक्तियुक्तानां नारीणां हरवल्लभे ॥
namaḥ śivāyai śarvāṇyai saubhāgyaṁ santatiṁ śubhām ।
prayaccha bhakti-yuktānāṁ nārīṇāṁ hara-vallabhe ॥
"Salutations to Śivā, Śarvāṇī! O beloved of Hara, grant saubhāgya and auspicious progeny to women endowed with devotion."
Follow this with the ṣoḍaśopacāra pūjā. śivāya namaḥ, ṣaṇmukhāya namaḥ and gaṇapataye namaḥ are the mantras for japa.
The naivedya. Laddus of wheat and sugar are prepared as naivedya. These laddus are called karva: wheat and sugar syrup boiled in a raw pot of black clay, also called a karva. Offer them in the pūjā.
The giving. Thirteen karvas, one lota, one vastra and one special karva are given to the husband's parents. Dakṣiṇā is given to the priest, and gifts to suvāsinīs and brāhmaṇas as one wishes.
At moonrise. Offer arghya to the Moon. Only then is food taken.
Folk customs and the Purāṇic tradition
There are many folk lores associated with this vrata. In different states of Bhārata there are different customs and traditions of celebrating Karaka Caturthī. But let us not forget the Purāṇic traditions.
The sieve, the sargī and the story of the false moon are loving customs, and there is no harm in keeping them. The Nārada Purāṇa passage mentions none of them. Its core is Gaṇeśa, the filled karakas, the giving, and arghya at moonrise.
The Purāṇa gives the adhikāra for this vrata to women. There is nothing wrong if husbands want to fast and observe Karaka Caturthī with their wives.
The stories told with the vrata
These kathās are heard on the day of the vrata, usually narrated by an elder woman of the family. They come from oral tradition and vrata manuals. None of them appears in the Nārada Purāṇa passage, and no Purāṇic chapter and verse has been traced for them. So they are best told as the tradition's kathās, not as the words of a Purāṇa.
Pārvatī keeps the first vrata. Folk tradition holds that Mother Pārvatī first kept this vrata for Lord Śiva. In one telling, during a great war between the devas and the asuras, Brahmā advised the wives of the devas to fast on the Caturthī of Kārttika, and the devas won.
Draupadī. When Arjuna went away for tapas, the other Pāṇḍavas faced hardship without him. Draupadī turned to Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who told her how Pārvatī had kept this vrata in a similar situation. Draupadī kept it for the well-being of the Pāṇḍavas. This is also a folklore and not found in Mahabharata critical editions.
Vīravatī and the false moon. This is the most widely told. Vīravatī, the only sister of seven brothers, kept her first Karaka Caturthī at her parents' home. By evening she was faint with hunger and thirst. Her brothers could not bear it, so they made a false moon behind a peepal tree (a lamp behind a sieve in some tellings, a mirror in others), and she broke her fast. Soon news came that her husband had died. She learnt of the deception, kept the vrata again with full devotion, and her husband's life was restored. Tellings differ on who restored it: Pārvatī, Indrāṇī or Yama. In one vrata-manual version, which heads the vrata "Vāmana Purāṇa", she is the married daughter of the brāhmaṇa Vedadharmā of Śākaprasthapura. In popular tellings she is a queen.
