123 - Sacred Rites (Vratas)

Brahma sard: 

1. I shall mention some Vratas in the month of Karttika. The devotee should worship Vishnu after bathing. He should take a single meal a day in the night or live on alms for a whole-month. 

2. He should take milk, vegetables and fruits or take fast. Freed from his sin he should attain every one of his desires and attain Hari. 

3. Hari's Vrata is always excellent. In Dakshinayana it is still more excellent. In the Chaturmasya the excellence is heightened further and the Bhishmapanchaka in the month of Karttika is better still. 

4. Hence, this excellent Vrata should be performed on the eleventh day in the bright half. He shall take three baths. Lord Hari, and the manes should be worshipped with barley grains. 

5. While worshipping he should be silent. The idol should be bathed with butter Panchagavya and water and smeared with camphor.

6-7. During the five days of Vrata, the devotee should burn incense sticks with ghee-smeared Guggulu. The Naivedya is sweet rice porridge. He should recite 'Om obeisance to Vasudeva' one hundred and eight times and with this same eight-syllabled mantra ending with Svaha he shall perform Homa with butter, rice grains and gingelly seeds. 

8-10. On the first day of the Vrata he should worship Hari's feet with lotus flowers; on the second day he should worship the knees with Bilva leaves; on the third day the navel with scents; on the fourth day the shoulders with water from Bilva leaves and on the fifth day he should worship the head with Malati flowers. During these days he should sleep only on the bare ground. The five constituents of Panchagavya should be taken in order on each day thus: first day cowdung; second day urine, third day milk, fourth day curd and on the fifth day all five ones. On the night of the fifteenth day (Full Moon) the Vrata shall conclude. He who performs this Vrata attains to worldly pleasures and salvation. 

11. Fasting on Ekadashi days (eleventh day) in both halves of the month shall be observed. It removes all sins and wards off hell-nay it enables one to attain Vishnuloka and gives everything desired. 

12-13. For authentic fasts, the eleventh and twelfth phases of the moon should cover the full day from sunrise to sunset and the thirteenth phase should be at sunrise. The Parana should be on the twelfth day. This Vrata can be performed even when there is impurity due to birth or death. If the eleventh phase covers the whole day from sunrise to sunset Lord Hari is present. If part of the day is covered by the tenth phase and part by the eleventh phase, demons permeate that. Fasts shall not be undertaken then. 

14. O sage, if the Full moon or New moon phase is mixed with either the fourteenth or the first phase, fast shall be undertaken. 

15. Similarly, fast can be undertaken when the third fourth, fifth or the sixth phase gets mixed with each other in the course of the day.