हरतालिका तीज व्रत कथा (भाद्रपद शुक्ल तृतीया) · Hartalika Teej Vrat Katha (Bhadrapad Shukla Tritiya)

The Hartalika Teej vrat is observed on Shukla Tritiya of the month of Bhadrapad, under the Hasta Nakshatra. On this day, Bhagwan Shiv and Mata Parvati are worshipped. It is kept chiefly by unmarried girls and married women whose husbands are living, in the belief that its merit brings a woman a happy married life like Parvati's and, ultimately, a place in heaven. The observer eats nothing that day, bathes in the evening, dresses in clean clothes, and shapes images of Shiv and Parvati from clay, worshipping them three times — morning, midday, and evening. The fast is broken only after the evening puja. A basket of suhaag items is offered to Parvati, and a dhoti and small towel are offered to Shiv. Afterward, this puja material, together with thirteen kinds of sweets and money as one is able, is given to a Brahmin woman, and blessings are sought from one's mother-in-law. Once the puja is complete, this katha is heard.

Once, Shiv Ji told Parvati this story to remind her of her own previous birth. As the daughter of the mountain-king Himalaya, Parvati had performed fierce tapasya on the banks of the Ganga since childhood, facing downward. During this penance she lived for a time on nothing but air, and for another stretch on withered leaves alone. She stood in water through the bitter cold of Magh, undertook the panchagni austerity of the five fires through the blazing heat of Vaishakh, and endured the pouring rains of Shravan under the open sky, all without food or water. Watching his daughter's harsh discipline, Himalaya grew deeply anxious and sorrowful. One day, Narad Muni arrived at his home. Asked his purpose, Narad said he had come at the bidding of Bhagwan Vishnu — pleased by Parvati's tapasya, Vishnu himself wished to marry her, and Narad had come to seek Himalaya's consent. Himalaya, overjoyed, agreed at once, reasoning that if Vishnu himself wished to take his daughter's hand, what objection could he possibly raise — every father wishes his daughter to become mistress of a prosperous, happy household. Narad carried this consent back to Vishnu, and the marriage was fixed.

When Parvati learned of this, she was shattered within. Seeing her sorrow, a sakhi asked the reason, and Parvati confided that she had already given her heart to Shiv as her husband, yet her father had fixed her marriage to Vishnu — she stood in a moral crisis and saw no way out but to give up her life. Her sakhi counseled patience, saying that the ideal of Indian womanhood was to remain devoted for life to the husband one had chosen in one's heart — that true faith and single-minded devotion leave even God powerless before them. She proposed taking Parvati deep into a forest, where her father could never find her, assuring her that God would surely help. Parvati agreed. Unable to find his daughter at home, Himalaya grew frantic, dreading the shame of Vishnu's wedding procession arriving to find no bride, and he had her searched for everywhere.

Meanwhile, Parvati settled with her sakhi in a cave by a riverbank and immersed herself in devotion to Shiv. On Bhadrapad Shukla Tritiya, under the Hasta Nakshatra, she shaped a Shivling from the river's sand, kept an all-night vigil, and sang hymns in Shiv's praise. Her penance was so powerful that Shiv's very seat trembled; he appeared before her at once and asked her to name a boon. Parvati told him she had already chosen him as her husband with a true heart, and asked that, if her tapasya had pleased him, he accept her as his consort. Shiv said "tathastu" — so be it — and returned to Kailash. The next morning, Parvati released her puja materials into the river and, with her sakhi, formally undertook this vrat. At that very moment, Himalaya arrived there with his kinsmen, still searching, and was deeply shaken to see his daughter's state and the severity of her penance; he asked her the reason.

Parvati told her father that she had spent most of her life in severe tapasya with the single aim of winning Mahadev as her husband, and that she had now proven herself in this test of her own resolve. Since he had already fixed her marriage to Vishnu, she had left home in search of the one she truly sought, and would return only on the condition that her marriage be performed with Mahadev. Himalaya accepted his daughter's wish, brought her home, and some time later had her married to Shiv with full traditional rites. Having finished the story, Shiv told Parvati that it was the merit of this very vrat, kept in his devotion on Bhadrapad Shukla Tritiya, that made their marriage possible, and that he would grant the heart's desire to any woman who observed it with full devotion. The vrat is called "Hartalika" because her sakhi had "harat" — carried off — Parvati from her father's home into the forest: harat meaning to abduct, and alika meaning a female friend. Shiv closed with a final blessing: any woman who keeps this vrat with complete devotion will attain an unbroken, eternal suhaag, just as Parvati did. Here the katha concludes.