🌸 Friday Vrat (Santoshi Mata) 2026

Next Friday — the 16-Friday vrat of Santoshi Mata: jaggery-and-gram prasad, the katha, and no sour food in the house; kept for peace at home, marriage, children and recovery from losses. Upcoming Fridays above, full vidhi, katha and udyapan below.

Friday belongs to Goddess Lakshmi, Santoshi Mata and the planet Venus (Shukra). In North Indian homes the most widely kept weekly vrat of women is the **Friday vrat of Santoshi Mata** — sixteen consecutive Fridays, a prasad of jaggery and roasted gram, the vrat katha, and one strict rule: on the vrat day nobody in the house eats or serves anything sour (lemon, tamarind, pickle, curd, tomato). Santoshi Mata is regarded as the daughter of Ganesha — the goddess of 'santosh', contentment, who brings plenty into a modest home and peace into a quarrelling one.

The same weekday also carries the **Vaibhav Lakshmi vrat** (from Gujarat-Maharashtra, now kept everywhere) — that has its own page. Above is the list of upcoming Fridays with the lunar month and paksha; below, the complete vidhi, samagri, katha, prasad, udyapan, regional customs and FAQs of the Santoshi Mata vrat.

Significance — why this vrat

Santoshi Mata: daughter of Ganesha and Riddhi-Siddhi — her very name means contentment. Her vrat is believed to bring harmony between husband and wife, release blocked money, and open the way to marriage and children. The vrat reached every home after the 1975 film 'Jai Santoshi Maa', but its customs — jaggery-gram, giving up sour food, sixteen Fridays — are older folk tradition.

Venus (Shukra): the planet of beauty, marriage, conjugal happiness, wealth, vehicles and the arts. When Venus is weak in the birth chart, the Friday vrat, donation of white things (rice, milk, sugar, white cloth), the mantra 'Om Shum Shukraya Namah' and Lakshmi puja are the traditional remedies.

Lakshmi's day: Friday evening Lakshmi aarti, cleaning the house, a lamp at the Tulsi plant and a prayer for grain and wealth — which is why the women of the house consider Friday auspicious for new work, purchases and cooking something sweet.

Puja vidhi (step by step)

The household vidhi of the Santoshi Mata Friday vrat — begin on any Friday (Shukla Paksha preferred), keep sixteen Fridays in a row, and do the udyapan on the sixteenth.

1. Morning: bathe, wear clean (preferably red or yellow) clothes; in the puja corner or the north-east, spread a red cloth on a chauki and place the picture of Santoshi Mata; in front, a water-filled kalash and on it a bowl full of jaggery and roasted gram (this is the main prasad).
2. Sankalp: with water, rice and a flower in the hand — 'I (name) will keep the Santoshi Mata vrat for sixteen Fridays for (wish); I will neither eat nor serve sour food' — release the water on the ground.
3. Puja: ghee lamp, incense, roli-akshat, red flowers (hibiscus/rose), a red chunri, jaggery-gram, banana; chant 'Om Shri Santoshi Mahamaye Gajanandam Dayini, Shukravaram Priyam Devi Narayani Namostute' or simply 'Jai Santoshi Mata' 11 or 21 times.
4. Katha: read or listen to the Santoshi Mata vrat katha (below) — hold jaggery-gram in the hand during the katha, say 'Santoshi Mata ki jai' at the end and sprinkle the kalash water around the house.
5. Aarti: 'Jai Santoshi Mata, maiya jai Santoshi Mata…' — after the camphor aarti give the prasad (jaggery-gram) to everyone at home; keep a share for the cow and the birds.
6. Vrat meal: one meal in the day — fruit or a plain meal without anything sour (no lemon, tamarind, pickle, curd, buttermilk, tomato, amla, raw mango); the rest of the family also avoids sour food that day — this is the core rule of the vrat.
7. Evening: a Lakshmi lamp, a lamp at Tulsi, a sweet offering; nothing bitter, sour or very spicy at night.
8. Udyapan (16th Friday): feed eight boys (or as many as possible) kheer, puri and gram curry — nothing sour at all, salt limited (many homes cook without salt) — with dakshina and a banana; request the children not to eat anything sour that day; katha, aarti, jaggery-gram, a red chunri and shringar for Mata; Brahmin or kanya bhojan where that is the family custom.

Puja samagri checklist

Jaggery and gram are the essentials — the rest is found in any home; the udyapan list is separate.

• Picture/idol of Santoshi Mata, chauki, red cloth, red chunri, kalash (water), bowl (jaggery + roasted gram)
• Jaggery (whole or small pieces) and roasted gram — fresh every Friday; banana, coconut, paan-supari
• Ghee lamp, cotton wick, incense, camphor, aarti plate, roli, akshat, mauli, turmeric
• Red flowers (hibiscus, rose, marigold), garland; attar/rose water; sindoor (married women)
• Katha book (Santoshi Mata vrat katha and aarti), bell, conch (if available)
• Udyapan: for 8 boys — kheer (rice-milk-sugar), puri, black-gram curry (nothing sour), banana, dakshina; 16 packets of jaggery-gram, chunri and shringar for Mata, new clothes (as one can)
• Venus remedy (optional): donation of white cloth, rice, milk, sugar, curd (on a non-vrat day); white flowers

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Vrat katha (the story)

The katha of Santoshi Mata: an old woman had seven sons — six earned, the seventh was idle. She fed the six well and gave the seventh their leftovers. His wife saw this and told him; he would not believe ill of his mother until he saw it with his own eyes — then, heartbroken, he left to earn abroad. In twelve years with a merchant he grew rich but forgot his home. Meanwhile his wife was tormented by her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law: fetching firewood from the forest, bread of husk, water in a coconut shell.

One day, while fetching wood, she saw women keeping the Santoshi Mata vrat and asked the method: 'On Friday, bathe, take jaggery and gram worth a quarter anna, hear the katha, eat and serve nothing sour, and do it for sixteen Fridays.' She sold her firewood, bought jaggery-gram and kept the vrat. Mata was pleased — after two Fridays she reminded the husband of home in a dream, had the merchant settle his accounts and sent him back with wealth. The wife did the udyapan — but the sisters-in-law tricked the children into asking for tamarind at the udyapan meal, and it was given. Mata was displeased — the king's soldiers took the husband away.

The wife understood her mistake, begged Mata's forgiveness and again fed eight Brahmin boys properly, without anything sour — the husband was released and returned, and a son was born. Mata herself came to the house as an old woman; the mother-in-law and sisters-in-law shut the door, then Mata showed her true form, all begged forgiveness and peace and contentment returned to the home. The lesson — keep the vrat with faith, avoid sour food completely, and never let the children eat anything sour at the udyapan — that is the heart of this katha.

Jaggery-gram, kheer-puri-chana; sour food completely forbidden

The prasad of Santoshi Mata is the simplest of all — jaggery and roasted gram. The vrat meal is once a day and without anything sour: a plain vegetable and roti, kheer, halwa, fruit, milk; no curd, buttermilk, lemon, pickle, tomato, tamarind or amla. For the udyapan, kheer, puri and black-gram curry (many homes without salt or with rock salt) are served to eight boys.

• Prasad: whole jaggery + roasted gram — with or without skin; some homes make jaggery-gram laddoos
• Vrat meal: plain bottle-gourd or potato curry (no tomato), roti/puri, rice-kheer, semolina halwa, fruit (banana, apple, pomegranate — no citrus), milk
• Udyapan plate: rice kheer, puri, dry black-gram curry (cumin-turmeric-coriander; no dry mango or tomato), banana, jaggery-gram — for 8 boys; the same for elders
• Forbidden on the vrat day for the whole house: lemon, tamarind, amla, pickle, curd/buttermilk/raita, tomato, raw mango, chutney, tomato sauce, orange/sweet lime, kadhi

Regional customs

This vrat is almost identical across North and Central India — the differences lie in the prasad and the udyapan details.

Do's and don'ts

Frequently asked questions

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Also read: Vaibhav Lakshmi vrat (Friday) · Monday vrat · Thursday vrat · Saturday vrat · Sakat Chauth

⚠️ This description follows traditional practice and folk belief (the vrat katha); the custom of your own family and region comes first. In pregnancy, diabetes or other illness do not keep the fast or the sour-food rule strictly — do only the puja and katha.

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