Karva Chauth Vrat Katha

Long ago a Brahmin named Vedsharma lived in Indraprastha with his wife Leelavati, seven sons and one daughter, Veeravati. Veeravati was the only sister, and her seven brothers loved her dearly.

After her marriage, Veeravati came to her parents' home for her first Karva Chauth. She kept the fast with her sisters-in-law from sunrise, without food or water. By evening she was faint with hunger and thirst, and the moon had not yet risen.

Her brothers could not bear to see her suffer. They lit a fire behind the trees on a hill and held up a sieve before it, so that the glow looked like the rising moon. They told her the moon had come up. Veeravati offered arghya to the false moon and sat down to eat.

With the first morsel she found a hair in her food; with the second she sneezed; with the third, word came from her in-laws that her husband had died. Grief-stricken, she understood that her fast had been broken before moonrise.

Indrani, the queen of the gods, appeared and told her that the vrat had been broken by deceit. She told Veeravati to keep the Chauth fast every month for a year and the Karva Chauth fast again with full devotion. Veeravati sat by her husband's body for the whole year, kept every fast faithfully and served him. When she kept the next Karva Chauth with complete devotion, Karva Mata was pleased and her husband came back to life.

Since then married women keep the Karva Chauth fast for their husbands' long life, hear this story in the evening and break the fast only after seeing the real moon and offering it water.