Hartalika Teej falls on the Tritiya of Shukla Paksha in Bhadrapada, and is kept by women for the wellbeing and long life of a husband, or by unmarried women for a good one. It commemorates the austerity by which Parvati won Shiva as her husband — not by beauty or bargain, but by unbroken resolve.

The name itself carries the story. 'Harat' means to carry away and 'aalika' means a female friend: Parvati's companions carried her off into the forest so that her father could not marry her to Vishnu against her will. The festival therefore honours a choice held to, at cost — the vrat is famously severe precisely because the resolve it remembers was severe.

The worship is of Gauri and Shankar together, made in clay by the women's own hands, and the fast is traditionally nirjala — without food or water — kept through the day and the night that follows.

Parvati had undertaken a long, severe penance to win Shiva as her husband. Seeing her waste away, her father Himavan resolved — on Narada's counsel — to give her instead to Vishnu. Parvati could not bear it, and a close friend (aalika) carried her off (harat) to a forest cave to escape the arranged match; from those two words comes the name Hartalika. There she made a Shiva lingam of river sand and worshipped it through the night without food or water. Shiva, moved by a devotion that had refused every easier path, appeared and granted that she would be his wife. Married women keep the vrat for a husband's long life; unmarried girls, for a husband like Shiva.

Hartalika Teej falls on the Shukla Tritiya of Bhadrapada, in the last stretch of the monsoon. Its defining feature is the nirjala vrat — a full day and night without even water — a demanding test of resolve kept when the season's cool and humidity make it just bearable. The Shiva lingam is made of sand: shaped, worshipped and, like the season's clay idols, returned — nothing permanent is kept.

The heart of Teej is sankalp — an unwavering resolve. Parvati refused the easier, grander match her father arranged and held to the one she had chosen through hardship; the fast re-enacts that firmness. The nirjala vrat is tapasya made small and personal: to want one thing so completely that hunger and thirst fall away before it.

Parvati, born as the daughter of the mountain king Himavan, had set her heart on Shiva and undertook a long penance to win him. Her father, unaware of her resolve, arranged her marriage to Vishnu. Distraught, she confided in a friend, who carried her away into a dense forest so the wedding could not proceed.

There, on the banks of a river, Parvati made a Shivalinga of sand and worshipped it through a fast without food or water, keeping vigil through the night. Pleased by an austerity that asked for nothing but him, Shiva appeared and accepted her as his wife. When Himavan found her, she told him she would marry only Shiva, and he relented. The vrat women keep is a re-enactment of that night on the riverbank.