History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c81.350

v6.c81.350

The worship of the Vaṭa tree comes in probably because Satyavat when the moment of death approached took shelter under the shade of the Vaṭa tree and supported himself by a branch of it and spoke in a choked voice to Sāvitrī that he had pain in the head²³⁴ The procedure of this vrata as set out in the Vratārka (folios 312-320) and other late medieval works is briefly as follows:—The woman should make a saṅkalpa in the form 'I shall perform Sāvitrīvrata for securing long life and health to my husband and my sons and for securing freedom from widowhood in this and subsequent lives' She should then sprinkle water at the root of the Vaṭa tree and surround it with cotton threads and should perform its worship with the upacāras and then offer worship to Sāvitrī (with image or mentally) from her feet upwards and pray to her to bestow on her beauty, good name, prosperity, and freedom from widowhood. Then she should worship Yama and Nārada and give presents (*vāyana*) to the priest and break her fast next day In Bengal the mode of performing Sāvitrī-vrata is different from the above In Bengal there is no Vaṭasāvitrīvrata, but there is Sāvitrīcaturdaśī on the 14th of the dark half of Jyeṣṭha to secure blessed wifehood in later lives. It is continued for 14 years If a woman was unable to fast for three days, she was allowed to have *nakta* on the 13th, to eat on the 14th whatever came to her without her asking for it and fast on the 15th²³⁵