The Solah Somvar vrat katha is the story of a temple priest who was cured after keeping a fast on sixteen Mondays, and of how the vrat passed from him to Parvati, to her son Kartikeya, and on to a poor Brahmin and a princess. It is read on each of the sixteen Mondays and again at the udyapan on the seventeenth.
Many people begin the vrat on the first Monday of Shravana, and the Sawan Mondays for the year are on the Sawan Somvar date page. How the Monday puja is done at home is on the Solah Somvar puja vidhi. This page is only the story, retold in our own words.
The game of chaupar in Amravati
Once Shiva and Parvati were travelling through the world of mortals and came to the city of Amravati, a beautiful place whose king had built a fine temple to Shiva. They decided to rest there for a while. To pass the time Parvati suggested a game of chaupar, the old game of dice and pieces, and they sat down to play inside the temple.
Just then the temple priest came in for the worship. Parvati asked him: tell me, priest, which of us will win this game? The priest, who served Shiva every day and could think of no other answer, said at once that Shiva would win.
The game went on, and Parvati won. She was displeased that the priest had answered without thought, from habit rather than truth, and in the story she declares that he will suffer from leprosy. Shiva and Parvati left the city, and the priest, as she had said, fell ill and grew weak.
Reading the story calmly
The curse in this katha is part of the old storytelling, where gods speak sharply and their words take effect at once. It is not a teaching that illness is a punishment, and no one who is unwell should read it that way; leprosy in particular is a curable disease and carries no shame. The story itself does not leave the priest there. It turns at once to how he was helped, by strangers who taught him patience and faith, and his recovery is the real centre of the tale.
The apsaras and the sixteen Mondays
Some time later a group of apsaras came down from heaven to the temple to worship Shiva. They saw the priest sitting sick and alone, and asked him what had happened. When he told them, they said: there is a vrat of Shiva that will help you. Keep a fast on sixteen Mondays. On each one, bathe, worship Shiva and Parvati, offer water, bel leaves and flowers, and make a prasad of wheat flour, ghee and jaggery. Divide it into three parts: one for the Lord, one for those present, and one for yourself. On the seventeenth Monday hold an udyapan, offering a larger prasad and sharing it with everyone.
The priest kept the vrat with care. Monday by Monday his strength returned, and by the end of the sixteenth week he was well.
Parvati and Kartikeya
When Shiva and Parvati passed that way again, Parvati was surprised to find the priest healthy and bright. She asked how he had been cured, and he told her of the apsaras and the sixteen Mondays.
At that time Parvati was sad, because her son Kartikeya had left home and gone away, unhappy with his parents. She decided to keep the vrat herself, wishing for him to return. She kept the sixteen Mondays, and on the seventeenth Kartikeya came home of his own accord.
Kartikeya asked his mother what had brought about his change of heart. When she told him of the vrat, he thought of a dear friend, a Brahmin, who had gone away to a distant land and never returned. Kartikeya kept the sixteen Mondays for him, and soon the friend came back. The friend in turn asked what had brought him home, and Kartikeya told him.
The friend and the princess
The Brahmin friend, poor and unmarried, kept the vrat himself, wishing to marry. When his sixteen Mondays were done, he travelled to a kingdom where the king had arranged an unusual swayamvar: a garlanded elephant would walk among the gathered suitors, and the man around whose neck it placed the garland would marry the princess. The friend stood at the back to watch. The elephant walked past princes and nobles and placed the garland on him.
The king kept his word. The princess married the Brahmin, and they lived in comfort. One day she asked him how a poor traveller had been chosen over so many princes. He told her of the sixteen Mondays. She kept the vrat herself, wishing for a son, and in time a good and wise son was born to them.
Other tellings
- Many books continue the story with the princess's son, who keeps the vrat in his turn and becomes a king; in some versions a further episode follows with his queen, who does not respect the puja, is sent away, and is welcomed back once she too keeps the vrat.
- In some tellings the curse is not leprosy but a general illness, and in some the apsaras teach the priest after he has asked Shiva himself for help.
- The amounts of flour and ghee for the prasad are given in the old measures in some books and left to the family in others.
How the katha is heard
On each Monday, after the Shiva-Parvati puja and the abhishek, the katha is read while those present hold a few grains of rice or a flower. At the end the grains are offered, the aarti Om Jai Shiv Omkara is sung, and the prasad is divided as the story describes. On the seventeenth Monday the whole family usually gathers to hear it.
What the story carries today
The Solah Somvar katha is about a vrat that keeps travelling. Each person who is helped by it passes it to someone else: the apsaras to the priest, the priest to Parvati, Parvati to her son, Kartikeya to his friend, the friend to his wife. Young women often keep the vrat hoping for a good marriage, but the story itself shows it kept by a sick man, a worried mother and a son missing his friend. Its message is patience, and the habit of telling others what helped you.
Two related kathas are the Mangla Gauri vrat, kept on the Tuesdays of Sawan for Parvati, and the Pradosh vrat, the twice-monthly evening fast for Shiva. Many people check the choghadiya and avoid the Monday rahu kaal when they choose the time of the puja.