Mangla Gauri Puja Vidhi: Shravan Tuesday Vrat at Home

The Mangla Gauri vrat is a fast and puja to Gauri kept on every Tuesday of Shravan, most often by a bride in the first five years after her wedding. In short: bathe and make a sankalp, set up Gauri on a covered stool, offer her sixteen of each item with the solah shringar and a sixteen-wick lamp, hear the katha, do the aarti, and close the cycle with an udyapan in the last year.

The Tuesdays follow the month of Shravan, and the span of that month, by the northern purnimanta count and by the amanta count of Maharashtra and Gujarat, is on the Sawan Somvar page. The same month's Gauri festival, Hariyali Teej, has its own page. This page is the order of the Tuesday puja.

Puja samagri

• A low wooden stool (chowki) and a red or yellow cloth to cover it
• An image of Gauri: a picture, a small metal murti, or a figure shaped from clean clay or from wheat-flour dough, as many families make
• A small Ganesh, or a betel nut wrapped in thread to stand for him
• A kalash with water, mango leaves and a coconut, if your family sets one up
• Roli, haldi, sindoor, akshat (unbroken rice), sandal paste, mauli thread
• The solah shringar for Gauri: bangles, bindi, sindoor, kajal, mehendi, a comb, mirror, alta, a red chunri and other small adornments
• Sixteen of each where you can: sixteen bangles, sixteen betel leaves with betel nuts, sixteen cloves and cardamoms, sixteen fruits, sixteen laddus or other sweets
• A ghee lamp made with sixteen wicks, or sixteen small lamps; incense
• Flowers, garlands and dub grass
• Grains of rice or wheat to hold during the katha
• Items for gifting at the udyapan: a set of suhag items, clothes and sweets

None of this needs to be costly. Sixteen is a number of completeness in the tradition, and families who cannot gather sixteen of everything simply offer what is at hand.

Step by step

1. Morning bath and sankalp. Rise early, bathe and wear clean clothes, often a red or green sari. Sit facing east or north, take a little water in the right hand and say in your own words that you are keeping the Mangla Gauri vrat for the well-being of your married life and family. Let the water fall to the ground.
2. Prepare the place. Clean the puja corner, place the chowki and spread the cloth. Set Gauri at the centre and Ganesh to her side. If you use a kalash, place it to the right with its leaves and coconut.
3. Ganesh first. Light incense and offer Ganesh roli, akshat, a flower and a sweet, asking that the puja go smoothly.
4. Bathe and adorn Gauri. If the image is metal, bathe it with water and a little milk and wipe it dry; a clay or dough figure is sprinkled lightly. Dress the goddess in the red chunri and offer the solah shringar one by one.
5. The sixteen-fold offering. Offer the sixteen bangles, betel leaves, cloves, fruits and sweets. Many brides count them aloud, item by item, as their mother-in-law watches.
6. Light the lamp. Light the ghee lamp with sixteen wicks, or the sixteen small lamps, and offer flowers and dub grass.
7. Hear the katha. Holding a few grains of rice, hear or read the Mangla Gauri vrat katha, the story of the merchant Dharmapal and Mangla. Offer the grains at Gauri's feet afterwards.
8. Aarti. Do the aarti of Gauri with the lamp, and of Ganesh if your family adds it. Ask for forgiveness for anything left out.
9. Touch the elders' feet. Many brides then touch the feet of their mother-in-law and offer her a share of the sweets and a few suhag items.
10. Meal. Some brides eat one meal after the puja, often without salt or without grain; others take fruit and milk through the day. Follow your household's custom and your health.

Checking the time

There is no single moment for this puja. The tradition places it in the morning or the first half of the day on each Shravan Tuesday, so what matters is which Tuesdays fall inside Shravan for your calendar, and the month's span is on the Sawan Somvar page. Families who like to start in a favourable window check the choghadiya for their city and avoid the rahu kaal of that Tuesday. A bride travelling or unwell on a Tuesday usually does a short puja wherever she is.

Customs families keep

These are customs, not conditions. Your own family's way comes first.

• The vrat begins in the first Shravan after the wedding and is kept for five years; some keep sixteen or twenty Tuesdays in all instead.
• In the final year an udyapan closes the vrat: a fuller puja, often a small havan, and gifts of suhag items, clothes and food to sixteen married women, or to a few, as the family can.
• Many brides keep the first Tuesday of their first Shravan at their parents' home, and the rest at their in-laws'.
• The lamp is kept burning through the puja and, in some homes, through the day.
• Some families make the Gauri figure fresh each Tuesday from dough and immerse it after the puja; others keep one image for the whole month.
• Unwell, pregnant or older women keep the day with fruit and milk, and a doctor's advice comes first.

Regional ways

• Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan: a quiet morning puja at home, the sixteen-fold offering and the katha, often with neighbouring brides joining in.
• Maharashtra: the day is Mangalagaur. New brides gather in one house for the puja, and in the evening and through the night they play the old women's games, fugdi and jhimma among them, and sing until late. The puja is often led by a priest, and the bride's mother sends gifts.
• Bihar and parts of the east: in some families the vrat is kept in the same way on Shravan Tuesdays, sometimes alongside the Monday fasts.

After the puja

Share the sweets as prasad. If the Gauri figure was clay or dough, immerse it quietly in a pot of water and pour the water into a plant. The Monday fasts of the same month have their own story in the Solah Somvar katha, and the Bhadrapada fast for Gauri and Shiva is the Hartalika Teej katha.