Gangaur
Eighteen days of Gauri worship ending on Chaitra Shukla Tritiya — Rajasthan's festival for married and unmarried women alike.
Where it is kept Rajasthan above all; also Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and parts of Haryana.
When it falls
Computed from the Moon's elongation from the Sun. The civil day is the one carrying the tithi running at sunrise.
Overview
The name is Gan and Gaur — Shiva and Parvati — and the festival is about the pair rather than either alone. It begins the day after Holi and runs eighteen days, closing on Chaitra Shukla Tritiya. Through those days women make and dress small clay images of Isar and Gauri, sing to them morning and evening, and carry them in procession on the last two days.
Unmarried girls keep it for a good husband; married women keep it for their husband's long life and for the wellbeing of the marriage. In Jaipur and Udaipur the closing procession is a public event, the images carried under umbrellas through the old city to the water, where they are given a final drink and, in some households, immersed.
Where it comes from
The observance is a folk one and its literature is oral — the Gangaur songs of Marwar and Mewar rather than a Puranic chapter. The story attached to it is Parvati's own austerity to win Shiva, which is Puranic; the eighteen-day form, the clay images and the procession are Rajasthani practice with no scriptural prescription behind them.
The royal Gangaur processions of Jaipur and Udaipur date in their present form to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the state took over the sponsorship of what had been a household rite.
Why it matters
It is one of the few major festivals that belongs to women in an unmediated way: they make the images, they sing the songs, they carry the procession, and no priest is required at any stage.
The eighteen-day span is unusually long, and the daily discipline — fresh water carried, the images fed and dressed each morning — is what the participants describe as the substance of it.
How to celebrate
- Bring fresh water for the images each morningThe daily water-carrying is the spine of the eighteen days.
- Sing the Gangaur songs in companyThe repertoire is transmitted only by singing it; this is how the festival survives.
- Dress the images and offer them the food the house is eatingThey are treated as guests for the duration, not as objects.
- Give the images a final drink of water before parting with themThe closing act of the procession, in Rajasthani practice.
What to avoid
These are not all the same kind of thing. Some are prohibitions from a named text, some are Indian law, some are practical, and some are a confusion worth not repeating. Each item says which it is.
- Do not begin the observance without intending to complete the eighteen daysIt is kept as a vrat; an abandoned vrat is worse regarded than one not begun.
- Do not let the images go unattended on any morning of the eighteenThe daily attendance is the observance itself.
- Do not treat it as interchangeable with TeejBoth are women's festivals for Parvati, but Gangaur is Chaitra and eighteen days; Teej is Shravana or Bhadrapada and a single day.
Where this comes from
Everything above is either computed by this site’s own panchang engine, or drawn from the works listed here. Where a custom is modern, commercial or contested, the page says so rather than presenting it as ancient.
- Rajasthani oral tradition — the Gangaur song cycles of Marwar and Mewar; there is no Puranic chapter prescribing the observance.
- The Parvati tapasya narrative underlying it appears in the Shiva Purana, Rudra Samhita.
Dates are computed for the place named above and will differ elsewhere. Regional traditions vary; where two reckonings are in use, both are named rather than one being chosen silently.
Other festivals
All festivals, with dates for any year · The calendar on the home page