Chaturmasya:
The name chaturmasya indicates four months. Chatur for four and masa for month.
People observe chaturmasya vrat during these four months. The vrata starts on Ashada sukla Ekadashi also known as sayana Ekadashi and goes on until karthika sukla Ekadashi also known as uttahana Ekadashi.
The reason for taking up this vrat is, Lord Vishnu had once given a boon to goddess of night that whoever performs this vrata will get multi fold benefits with respect to observing the same in other months.
He also said that this benefits would be in the increasing order starting from Ashada being the least of the multi fold increase in benefits, then it increases in Sravana, and goes on to increase in Bhadrapada and finally the highest in Karthika masa(month).
People observing this vrat will have four vrats for the four months and those are as follows:
Fasting on the day is common for all the four vrats.
Sakha vrat : the first month form Ashada sukla Ekadashi to Sravana Sukla Ekadashi. During this period devotees are forbideen to intake Sakha(any vegetable) as food.
Dadhi vrat: the second month from Sravana sukla Ekadashi to Bhadrapada sukla Ekadashi, devotees are forbidden to intake any form of curd.
Ksheera vrat: the third month from Bhadrapada sukla Ekadashi to Asweeja sukla Ekadashi, devotees are forbidden to intake any form of ksheera(milk).
Dwidala vrat: the fourth month from Asweeja sukla Ekadashi to karthika sukla Ekadashi, devotees are forbidden to intake any form of vegetables or pulse that have seed inside them or when broken it divides into two.
Sanyasis will not cross the border of the village in which they are staying and will observe the above vrats. The main reason for not moving around is that rainy season is the breeding season for insects and other creatures and the eggs and new borns might get affected due to the sanyasis moving around with all their disciples.
dnyandev pawat
Aug 24. 2014
I want full iformrmation about chaturmasya vrata in Marathi lanquege and vrata (eating food type and timing.