Teej (Haritalika Teej)

Teej, in its most widely observed Nepali form Haritalika Teej, is a Hindu women's festival rooted in the love story of the goddess Parvati and the god Shiva. According to the legend drawn from Puranic tradition, Parvati, daughter of the mountain king Himalaya, was determined to win Shiva as her husband. To achieve this she undertook severe austerities, fasting and praying with unwavering devotion over a long penance. In the Hartalika episode she fashioned a Shiva lingam from the sand and silt of a riverbank and worshipped it; moved by her devotion, Shiva gave his word to marry her. This myth of penance rewarded by union is the emotional and theological core of the festival, and it is the reason fasting sits at its centre.

The name Haritalika itself preserves a second strand of the story. It is usually derived from the Sanskrit words harat (abduction) and aalika (female friend): when Parvati's parents sought to marry her to Vishnu against her wishes, her companions are said to have spirited her away into the forest so she could continue her penance for Shiva. The festival therefore commemorates not only Parvati's devotion but also the solidarity of women who helped her follow her own will. Because women fast and pray to Parvati and Shiva, the deities are honoured as the ideal of marital love, and devotees seek their blessing for a good husband, marital happiness and family well-being.

Teej is in fact an umbrella term in the wider South Asian tradition, covering three related festivals: Hariyali (Haryali) Teej, Kajari Teej and Hartalika Teej. Hariyali Teej falls on the third day after the new moon in the month of Shravan, Kajari Teej about fifteen days later in the waning fortnight, and Hartalika Teej one lunar month after Hariyali Teej, on the third day of the bright half of Bhadrapada. It is this last, Haritalika Teej, that is the great women's festival of Nepal.

Haritalika Teej is observed on Bhadra Shukla Tritiya, the third day of the bright (waxing) fortnight of the lunar month of Bhadrapada (Bhadra), which falls in late August or September of the Gregorian calendar. The dating follows the lunar calendar, so the exact day shifts from year to year. The festival sits at the tail end of the monsoon, and the wider Teej cycle is closely associated with the greenery and rains of the season, which is why related observances feature swings hung from trees and songs welcoming the monsoon.

In Nepal the celebration is built around this central fasting day but extends across roughly three days, beginning with a feast on the eve and concluding two days later with Rishi Panchami on Bhadra Shukla Panchami, the fifth day of the same fortnight. The festival is principally observed by Hindu women across Nepal and in neighbouring Indian states, and it is one of the most visible and joyously public expressions of women's religious life in the country.

The festivities open with Dar Khane Din, the day of the Dar feast on the eve of the fast. Women gather, often at a parental home or a relative's house, dress in their finest red attire and eat a rich, celebratory meal late into the night, since they will take neither food nor water the following day. The Dar spread is lavish and varied, and the gathering is filled with singing and dancing. Traditionally married daughters are invited back to their maternal homes for this occasion, making Teej as much a reunion of women as a religious observance.

The second day is Haritalika Teej proper, the main day. Many women keep a strict nirjala vrata, a fast in which they abstain from both food and water for twenty-four hours in emulation of Parvati's penance, praying for the long life and prosperity of their husbands; unmarried women fast in hope of a good future husband. Despite the hardship, the day is exuberant rather than sombre: dressed in red saris with red tika, glass bangles and the pote (the beaded marriage necklace), women dance and sing for hours, often in the heat or rain, without eating or drinking. Crowds throng Shiva temples, above all the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu, where thousands of women in red queue to perform puja to Shiva and Parvati with offerings, lamps and prayers.

The third day is Rishi Panchami, which closes the festival on Bhadra Shukla Panchami. Women perform a ritual bath of purification, traditionally using the leaves and the red-tinged roots of the sacred datiwan (apamarga) bush, and then worship the Sapta Rishi, the seven great sages, along with Arundhati, the wife of the sage Vasishtha. The sages are honoured with offerings such as betel leaf, flowers, camphor and a lamp, and a vrata is kept. Rishi Panchami is understood as a rite of ritual purification, and brings the three days of fasting, feasting, devotion and celebration to a close.

Food frames the whole festival: the indulgence of the Dar feast on the eve gives way to the total abstinence of the fast, and then to the lighter, purifying meal that follows Rishi Panchami. The Dar table typically features rice and beaten rice (chiura), spiced lentils, vegetable curries and meat dishes, pickles such as aloo achar (potato pickle), and an array of sweets and fried treats, among them sel roti, the ring-shaped Nepali rice doughnut, along with sweets such as ladoo. In the wider tradition the sweet ghevar is especially associated with Teej and is given as a gift to women.

Dress and adornment are themselves a tradition of Teej. The dominant colour is red, the colour of marital love and auspiciousness, worn as saris together with red tika and the pote necklace; green glass bangles are also linked to good fortune. Married women often wear the new bangles, pote and tika given to them by their husbands for the occasion, and many apply mehndi (henna). The collective gifts a woman receives are known in the wider tradition as sindhara. Music is integral too: the festival is accompanied by Teej songs sung to the madal drum and harmonium, many of which retell Parvati's own story of penance and union with Shiva, while others are humorous or pointedly comment on women's lives.

While Haritalika Teej is the dominant form in Nepal, the broader Teej tradition takes different shapes across the region. In Indian states it is often the monsoon-welcoming Hariyali and Kajari Teej that take precedence. In Rajasthan, women dress in green and sing to celebrate the coming of the rains, and an elaborate Teej procession is taken out in Jaipur. In Punjab the festival is called Teeyan and is marked by the Gidda dance and by swings. In Haryana it is observed as an official holiday with public celebrations. The swing hung under a tree, on which women sing and play, is a defining image of these monsoon Teej festivals.

Within Nepal, Teej began as a festival chiefly of Hindu, especially Bahun and Chhetri, women, but it is now celebrated very widely. Although it has traditionally centred on married women fasting for their husbands, unmarried women now take part on a large scale, fasting in the hope of a good partner, and participation has broadened so that the day-long fast is observed more flexibly by many. Female visitors and tourists are sometimes invited to join in the merry-making, particularly around major temple gatherings.

At its heart Teej is a celebration of womanhood, devotion and family. The fast and puja express a wife's prayer for her husband's longevity and a household's well-being, modelled on Parvati's archetypal devotion, and for unmarried women a prayer for a good marriage. But the festival is equally a rare, sanctioned occasion for women to gather in large numbers, return to their natal families, sing, dance and enjoy collective celebration outside the routines of domestic life. The crowds of red-clad women filling temple courtyards and public spaces make Teej one of the most visible expressions of women's community in Nepal.

In modern observance Teej has also become a platform for women's voice. The folk songs of the festival, once largely devotional or domestic, increasingly serve as social commentary, addressing themes such as gender inequality, domestic difficulties and women's rights, and giving women a public means to speak about their lives. At the same time the festival has grown more elaborate and commercialised in urban Nepal, with large organised gatherings and lavish Dar feasts, prompting some public discussion about extravagance. Even so, the core of Teej, fasting, prayer, song and the celebration of womanhood, remains central to its meaning.