Vat Purnima

Vat Purnima is built around the celebrated story of Savitri and Satyavan from the Mahabharata tradition. Savitri knowingly chooses Satyavan as her husband even after learning that he is destined to die within a year. When the foretold day arrives, she follows him into the forest and remains beside him as his life ends. As Yama carries away Satyavan's life, Savitri follows with such intelligence, devotion and moral strength that Yama repeatedly grants her boons. She carefully asks for blessings that restore her family's fortunes and future, ultimately making Satyavan's return to life necessary. Women worship the banyan tree, whose longevity and spreading roots symbolize enduring life, and tie sacred thread around its trunk while praying for family well-being. The story celebrates Savitri not merely for marital loyalty, but for courage, reasoning and unwavering presence in the face of death.

Vat Purnima is valued for devotion, family tradition and the spiritual or seasonal meaning attached to the day.

A banyan is circled with a thread, in Maharashtra usually in fives - five rounds, five fruits, five kinds of grain. Married women fast through the day and break it after the puja. Where both dates are kept in one family it is usually the older generation on the amavasya and the younger on the purnima.

Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa and Karnataka keep it on the Jyeshtha full moon; Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha keep the same vrat as Vat Savitri Amavasya a fortnight earlier. Same story, same tree, and a fortnight between the two calendars.