Pūrṇimā

When it falls

The full moon (pūrṇimā), the fifteenth day of the bright fortnight, once a lunar month. Several of the year's named festivals fall on one — Guru Pūrṇimā, Kārttika Pūrṇimā, Buddha Pūrṇimā — and on those days the festival is kept and this is not listed separately.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

The full moon has been the month's marker for as long as the calendar has existed: the pūrṇimānta reckoning of northern India names each month after the star the moon is full in, so the day the month is named for is this one.

The Satyanārāyaṇa Vrata Kathā, read in many homes on the evening, tells of a poor brahmin, a woodcutter, a merchant and a king — four people of four stations who kept the vow and were answered, and who forgot it and were not. The story is told for its plainness: the vow is available to anyone.

The moon governs the mind in this tradition, and the full moon is held to be when it is most full and least still. A fast on it is a settling.

How the day is kept

• A fast through the day, broken after the moon is seen.
• The Satyanārāyaṇa pūjā in the evening, with the kathā read aloud and sapāda bhakṣya — a sweet of semolina, ghee, sugar and banana — shared after.
• A bath in a river at dawn where there is one; Kārttika and Māgha draw the largest bathing crowds of the year.
• Many keep it only as a lighter day rather than a fast, which the tradition allows: the vrata is the intention, not the hunger.

More fasts and vigils