A vrata is a vow undertaken for a set term — a fast day kept, a food renounced, a rite performed — for the good of oneself or of those one loves.
Tagged: Fasting Prayer Sacred time Hindu
How It Is Practiced
The calendar is thick with them: Ekādaśī, the eleventh day of each lunar fortnight, kept by abstaining from grains; Monday fasts for Śiva, Tuesdays for Hanumān, the nine nights of Navarātri; and the great domestic vows, kept mostly by women, for a husband's long life, a child's recovery, or a family's fortune — fasts bound with a story (vrata-kathā) told while the rite is done. The vow's terms are self-imposed and exact: what is renounced, for how long, and the rite that closes it.
Purpose and Meaning
Vrata turns devotion into resolve. Where the daily rites are received, the vow is authored: the worshipper binds herself, and the tradition honors the binding as tapas — heat that accomplishes. Its critics within Hinduism have sometimes called the great vows transactional; its defenders answer that a promise kept at cost, for another's good, is among the purest shapes love takes.
References
- Vrata — Wikipedia Free / open access
Related Practices
- Fasting (Orthodox) — Orthodox fasting keeps set seasons and weekdays free of meat, dairy, and often oil and wine, joined to prayer and almsgiving.
- The Ramadan Fast — For the month of Ramadan, from dawn to sunset, the fast from food, drink, and desire — broken nightly with family and prayer, and crowned by the Night of Decree.
- Home Pūjā — The household shrine's daily worship: the deity awakened, bathed, dressed, fed, and offered lamp and flowers as an honored guest in the home.
Related Across the Site
- Eucharistic Adoration Devotion — In Eucharistic adoration the consecrated host is displayed and the faithful pray in its presence in silence.
- Fasting (Orthodox) Devotion — Orthodox fasting keeps set seasons and weekdays free of meat, dairy, and often oil and wine, joined to prayer and almsgiving.
- First Fridays Devotion Devotion — The First Fridays devotion joins Mass and Communion on nine consecutive first Fridays to the promises of the Sacred Heart.
- Home Pūjā Devotion — The household shrine's daily worship: the deity awakened, bathed, dressed, fed, and offered lamp and flowers as an honored guest in the home.
- The Angelus Devotion — The Angelus is a short prayer on the Incarnation, prayed at morning, noon, and evening at the sound of a bell.
- The Bahá'í Fast Devotion — For the nineteen days of the month of ʿAlāʾ, the last month before the spring New Year, Bahá'ís fast from sunrise to sunset.
- Veneration of Icons Devotion — Before the icons at home and in church, the faithful light lamps and candles, bow, and kiss the images of Christ and the saints.
- Gayatri Mantra Prayer or Creed — The most revered mantra of the Rig Veda, a meditation on the divine light that illumines the mind.