Jitiya · Jivitputrika Vratam The hardest fast of the Maithil and Bihari year, kept by mothers for the lives of their sons, without food and without water for a day and a night.

English

Jitiya · Jivitputrika

हिन्दी

जितिया · जीवितपुत्रिका

मैथिली

जितिया

Only the names actually in use are listed. A blank script is not an omission: the day may simply not be kept there, or be kept under a different festival's name.

1. Thursday, 23 September 2027
2. Tuesday, 12 September 2028
3. Monday, 1 October 2029

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Worked out for Chennai, Lahiri ayanamsa. A date is a function of the place: set yours above and the next three come back for where you are.

The hardest fast of the Maithil and Bihari year, kept by mothers for the lives of their sons, without food and without water for a day and a night. It is the Jimutavahana vrat: Jimutavahana, a prince of the Vidyadharas, offered himself to Garuda in the place of a serpent boy and was given back his life, and the mother who keeps the day asks the same for her children. The fast opens with the nahay khay the day before and the oil and the ritual bath, is kept through the Ashtami, and is broken the next morning after the sun is seen. The eagle and the jackal of the story are fed, and the women of a house keep it together.

Deity

Jimutavahana, Shiva, Jivitputrika

Kind

Vratam Days kept by a fast or a vow, most of them coming round every lunar month.

Ashvina Krishna Ashtami prevailing at pradosha, the evening, which is the rule the panchang gives: the day on whose evening the Ashtami falls.

Sunrise 05:58, sunset 18:05, UTC+5.5. These are the instants the rule is read at, not the temple's own puja times, which every temple prints for itself.

Nirjala, without food and without water, from the evening before until after sunrise on the day following; the fast is broken with jhor bhat and the leafy sarson ka saag, and the madua roti of millet is eaten the night before.

Mithila and the rest of Bihar keep it as Jitiya; Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh keep the same day as Jivitputrika, and Nepal keeps it as Jitiya Parv in the Terai.

The dates above are the Mithila reckoning, because that is the calendar this key belongs to. Switch the tradition on the calendar page to see how another one dates the same day.

Every date here is computed from the Sun and Moon for the place entered, by the rule printed beside it. A printed panchangam can differ by a day where an almanac reads a tithi at a different instant, and a family's own custom always comes first. Where the practice genuinely varies, the text says so rather than choosing for you.