Solah Somvar Vrat

A religious vow (vrat) that is a variant of
the worship of the god Shiva prescribed
for every Monday (Somvar), the day of
the week over which he is believed to
preside. In the Solah Somvar Vrat, the
observer vows to do perform this rite for
sixteen (solah) consecutive Mondays.
Each week’s observance is marked by
fasting (upavasa), worship, and reading
aloud the charter myth for this particular observance. As with most literature
pertaining to such rites, the text ends
with a catalog of the benefits brought by
the rite—in essence, it gives whatever
one desires.
According to the vow’s charter myth,
as Shiva and his wife Parvati are playing
dice in a temple, Parvati asks a nearby
brahmin which of them will win, and
when he replies that it will be Shiva, she
angrily curses him to be afflicted with leprosy. The curse comes true (as with all
curses in Indian mythology) and the
brahmin is in a terrible state. Shiva takes
pity on the brahmin, tells him to perform
the Solah Somvar Vrat, and on the sixteenth Monday, the brahmin is completely
cured. Some time later Parvati sees him
and is amazed at his recovery. When she
asks how he has been cured, the brahmin
tells her about the vow, which she later
uses to cure her son of disobedience (thus
emphasizing the power of the vow, since
it is even used by the gods themselves).
658
Snataka