Jitiya 2028: Date, Rituals & Significance

Krishna Ashtami runs 11 Sept, 18:10 → 12 Sept, 18:10.

Day one, Nahay-Khay, is a purifying bath and a single sattvik meal. Day two, the main Jitiya, is a full nirjala fast from before sunrise to the next day's sunrise. Day three, Parana, breaks the fast with jhor-bhaat, noni-saag, marua roti and sweets. Mothers worship a small image or figure of Jimutavahana with kusha grass, and often a red-yellow 'jitiya' thread is tied.

The vrat is regarded as one of the hardest women's fasts of the year. Two folk stones or clay figures — an eagle (chil) and a she-jackal (siyarin) — are also worshipped: in the katha one kept the fast sincerely and her children lived, the other broke it and lost hers, so the vrat must be kept without lapse.

Jimutavahana, a Vidyadhara prince, found a Naga mother weeping: her son was that day's tribute to Garuda, who ate one serpent daily. Jimutavahana wrapped himself in the red cloth that marked the victim and lay on the rock in the boy's place. Garuda carried him off and began to eat, but the prince's calm and willingness stopped him; learning the truth, Garuda revived the prince, swore off serpent flesh, and restored the Nagas he had killed.

Source: Harsha's Nagananda and the eastern vrata-katha tradition — Jimutavahana and the Jivitputrika vrat

The Jimutavahana story is old — dramatised in Harsha's seventh-century play Nagananda — and the Jivitputrika vrat built on it is a settled women's observance of the eastern Gangetic plain and Mithila, described in the regional vrata literature.

• Harsha's Nagananda and the eastern vrata-katha tradition — Jimutavahana and the Jivitputrika vrat
• Wikipedia — Jivitputrika

1. In Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern UP and Nepal's Mithila, mothers keep this fast for their children over three days.
2. On Nahay-Khay they bathe and eat a special meal; the next day, the fast itself, they take no food or water, and worship Jimutavahana with the katha of the kite and the she-jackal.
3. The fast is broken the following morning at the parana, often with the same foods as the first day.

• Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern UP, Mithila and the Nepal Tarai. Nahay-Khay, the day-and-night nirjala fast, worship of Jimutavahana with kusha, the chil-siyarin figures, and Parana with noni-saag and marua roti.
• Chhattisgarh. Kept as Halshashthi-adjacent women's fasting; local variants in the katha.

• Marua roti and noni saag — Finger-millet bread and purslane greens, eaten on Nahay-Khay and at the parana.
• Fish — In Mithila, fish is part of the Nahay-Khay meal.

Jitiya (Jivitputrika) is kept on the day when Ashtami of Ashwin Krishna paksha prevails at sunrise. That day is Tuesday, 12 September 2028. Ashtami holds at sunrise only on this day.

at sunrise

Jitiya's main fast is Ashwin Krishna Ashtami — the eighth tithi of the waning fortnight of Ashwin, in September, during Pitru Paksha. The nirjala fast runs from the Saptami evening's Nahay-Khay to the Navami morning Parana, timed by the local almanac's tithi window.

A lunar date: Ashtami of the dark half of Ashwin drifts about 11 days earlier each solar year, then jumps back ~19 days when a leap (Adhika) month is inserted.