Ahoi Ashtami

According to the katha, a merchant's wife went to a quarry to fetch clay. While digging, her spade unknowingly killed the cubs of a Syahu (porcupine) living there. By the grieving Syahu's curse all seven of the merchant's sons died within a year, and the couple, overcome with grief, set out to give up their lives at a place of pilgrimage.

When the couple collapsed from exhaustion on the way, a divine voice told them this was the fruit of the Syahu cubs' death, and asked them to go home, serve a cow, show compassion to every creature and worship Ahoi Mata with due rites on Ahoi Ashtami. When they did so they were blessed with children again, and ever since, mothers have kept this vow for their children's protection and long life.

Mata Ahoi is regarded as a form of Goddess Parvati herself, worshipped especially as the deity of children's wellbeing, long life, and protection. This vow falls three or four days after Karva Chauth and about a week before Diwali, and is especially popular in North India.

Mothers bathe in the morning and begin the waterless fast. An image of Mata Ahoi along with the Syahu and her cubs is drawn on the wall using red and yellow clay, or a printed image is used instead.

In the evening, after the puja, the Ahoi Ashtami legend is heard, and a silver-beaded necklace called 'Ahoi' is worn. The fast is broken only after the stars appear, offering them arghya of water.

In some places, mothers break the fast upon sighting the moon instead of the stars, depending on when the moon rises that day. After the puja, a meal is shared with the family.

In Braj there is a tradition of bathing in Radha Kund, near Mathura, on this night. It is believed that a childless couple who bathe in Radha Kund at midnight on Ahoi Ashtami are blessed with a child, so thousands of devotees gather there that night.