Solah Somvar Vrat 2026: When to Start, Puja Vidhi & Udyapan

When

• Count sixteen Mondays from the one you begin on. Write the dates down; the vow is in the counting as much as the fasting.
• Each Monday: bathe and do the puja in the morning, keep the fast through the day, do the evening puja at dusk, read the katha, then eat.
• Begin in Shravan if you can wait for it. If you cannot, the next Monday is a good Monday; the texts do not tie the vow to one month.

What the fast allows

One meal, after the evening puja, is the usual form. Through the day most people take fruit, milk, curd and water; sabudana and potato with sendha namak are allowed in the phalahar tradition. Grain, pulses, onion, garlic and ordinary salt wait until the meal, and many families keep the meal itself without grain.

If you are unwell, pregnant, or on medicine that must be taken with food, keep the puja and the katha and eat as you need to. A vow is a discipline, not a punishment; the texts allow the fast to be eased where the body asks for it.

The Monday puja

1. 1

   Bathe and take the sankalp

   Bathe early and wear clean, preferably white clothes. With water in your right palm, say that you will keep sixteen Mondays for Shiva, from this Monday, and let the water fall. On the first Monday only, this is the beginning of the vow.

2. 2

   Abhishek

   Pour Gangajal, then milk mixed with water, then a little of each panchamrit item, over the Shivling in a slow, thin stream, chanting Om Namah Shivaya. Rinse with clean water and wipe.

3. 3

   Offer

   Chandan on the lingam, then bhasma, akshat, bel patra with the smooth side down, white flowers and dhatura. Light the diya and dhoop. Offer mishri or a piece of the churma.

4. 4

   Japa

   One mala of Om Namah Shivaya on the rudraksha, 108 times, sitting facing east or north.

5. 5

   Katha and aarti

   Read the Solah Somvar katha aloud, the same one each week. End with the Shiva aarti and a pradakshina of the altar if there is room.

6. 6

   Evening

   At dusk, light the diya again, offer water and bel patra, say the mantra eleven times, and only then eat. If you visit a temple, the evening is the time.

The churma

The katha itself gives the prasad: wheat flour roasted slowly in ghee until it darkens and smells nutty, sweetened with jaggery or sugar, and pressed into laddus or left loose. It is made fresh, divided into three: one part offered to Shiva, one shared with family and anyone who comes, one eaten by the person keeping the vow.

Some families make it every Monday; others keep the plain fast for sixteen weeks and make it only at the udyapan. Both are kept.

If you miss a Monday

Illness, travel and a death in the family interrupt vows, and tradition has an answer for each: add a Monday at the end so the count still reaches sixteen. A Monday that falls during a period of ashaucha after a death is skipped and added later. Do not begin again from one; the sankalp stands.

Udyapan, the seventeenth Monday

1. 7

   Prepare

   Clean the puja place, bathe, and lay out the same samagri with more of everything: fresh bel patra, flowers, fruit, and churma made with more flour than usual, traditionally a quarter kilo of flour or more.

2. 8

   A fuller abhishek

   Do the abhishek with all the panchamrit items in turn and water between each, with the Rudra mantras if someone can recite them, or Om Namah Shivaya throughout. A Rudrabhishek at home on this day is common; the Rudrabhishek guide in the journal walks through it.

3. 9

   Katha, havan, aarti

   Read the katha once more, with the family gathered. A small havan with ghee and the Mahamrityunjaya mantra is done where a pandit is present; it is not required.

4. 10

   Dana and bhojan

   Feed a few people: a pandit if you have called one, or children, or anyone in need. Give what you can: cloth, grain, a little money. Distribute the churma.

5. 11

   Close

   Thank Shiva for the sixteen Mondays, take water in your palm again and say the vow is complete. Many people keep the Monday fast loosely afterwards, by habit; that is the vow's real gift.

What usually goes wrong

• Counting loosely. Write the sixteen dates down on the first Monday.
• Offering tulsi, haldi, kumkum or ketaki to the Shivling. Bel, chandan, bhasma and white flowers are Shiva's.
• Breaking the fast before the evening puja, or after the puja without the katha.
• Using ordinary salt in the phalahar. Use sendha namak.
• Starting again from one after a missed Monday. Add one at the end instead.
• Treating the udyapan as optional and never closing the vow. The seventeenth Monday is part of it.

Quick answers