Shukravar Vrat 2028: Date, Vrat Vidhi & Significance

Break after the worship with one meal containing nothing sour.

Friday, ruled by Venus, is kept for the Goddess — most popularly Santoshi Mata, and also Vaibhav Lakshmi. The Santoshi Mata vrat is kept for sixteen Fridays: a single meal with no sour food (khatai), gur and chana offered, the katha read, and on the last Friday an udyapan feeding eight boys. Vaibhav Lakshmi is worshipped with a silver coin, kheer and the aarti.

Weekday vratas (varavrata) and the weekday-Pradosh combinations are set out in the Nibandha and vrata literature and elaborated in popular Vrat Katha collections; the planetary-remedy reading is from applied jyotish. The Santoshi Mata Friday vrat is a twentieth-century addition to the older set.

• Nibandha and Vrata-katha literature

1. Kept for Santoshi Mata, often for sixteen Fridays, or for Lakshmi: jaggery and roasted chana are offered and the Santoshi Mata katha is read.
2. Sour food is strictly avoided by everyone in the household, following the katha.
3. The udyapan feeds eight boys, again with no sour food served.

Phala: Contentment (santosh), household prosperity and beauty, a happy family, and the easing of want; strengthening of Venus.

The Santoshi Mata katha, popular from the 1960s and the 1975 film, tells of a young wife ill-treated by her in-laws while her husband is away; she keeps the sixteen-Friday vrat, Santoshi Mata sends word and wealth, the husband returns, and the jealous sisters-in-law who break the no-sour rule bring trouble on themselves until they too keep the fast.

Source: Vrata-katha tradition (the Vrat Katha Sangrah and regional collections)

1. Sankalpa. Bathe, wear white or pink, and take the sankalpa for the Friday fast.
2. Santoshi Mata puja. Offer jaggery and roasted chana to Santoshi Mata, with a lamp and flowers.
3. Katha. Read the Santoshi Mata katha.
4. Meal. Take one meal in which nothing sour is served.

• Jaggery and roasted chana
• Flowers
• Lamp and incense
• A kalash of water

• No sour food for anyone in the house
• Keep sixteen Fridays if taken as a vow
• At the udyapan, feed eight boys and serve nothing sour

Who should not keep this fast: Those who are ill, pregnant, nursing, elderly or diabetic should keep phalahar or a fruit-and-milk fast rather than a saltless single meal, or do the puja and dana without fasting.

• Pan-Indian. Kept across North, West and Central India as a household vrat; the Santoshi Mata form is pan-Indian since the 1970s.

• White or pale pink food, saltless — The vrat meal follows the day: white or pale pink ingredients where possible, no salt, and often a single grain (wheat, or chana dal on Thursday). Sour food is avoided on Friday.

Shukravar Vrat falls on Friday, 7 January 2028. Friday fast for Santoshi Maa / Lakshmi.

at sunrise

Shukravar Vrat is not tied to a tithi: it is kept on Friday itself, ruled in the planetary week by Shukra (Venus). A vow is usually taken for a fixed run — 16, 21 or 43 weeks — and closed with an udyapan. It recurs every seven days.

The date is set by the Hindu lunisolar calendar and shifts against the Gregorian year.