Open any Nepali calendar in mid-July and you land in the Shrawan month, the fourth of the Bikram Sambat year. This year Shrawan began on July 17. For the next month, temple bells ring earlier than usual. The vegetable market fills with women in green. The roads to Shiva temples grow crowded every Monday morning. Shrawan belongs to Shiva, and much of Nepal organizes its devotional life around that fact.
Why Shrawan is Shiva's month
The story most priests tell comes from the Samudra Manthan, the churning of the cosmic ocean. The churning produced halahala, a poison strong enough to destroy creation. Shiva drank it and held it in his throat. The gods poured water over him through the month of Shrawan to cool the burning. Offering water and milk to a Shiva linga in this month re-enacts that relief. That is why the simplest Shrawan ritual — a lota of water poured over the linga — is also considered the most complete one.
The month also sits in the middle of the monsoon. Rice was transplanted in Asar, and the fields need rain more than labor. The agricultural lull left room for a month of fasting and temple visits. Like most things in the Nepali calendar, the ritual logic and the farming logic fit together.
Shrawan Sombar: the Monday fast
Sombar means Monday, and Mondays in Shrawan are fasting days for Shiva devotees. The fast varies by household. The strict version takes no food until the evening puja. The common version allows fruit, milk and one meal without salt. Devotees visit a Shiva temple in the morning and offer water, milk, bel leaves and dhaturo. Pashupatinath in Kathmandu sees its longest queues of the year on these days. The fast breaks after lamps are lit in the evening.
Unmarried women traditionally keep the Shrawan Sombar fast asking for a good husband. Married women keep it for their husband's long life. Plenty of people now keep it simply as a discipline, the way others give something up for a season. Nobody checks your reasons at the temple gate.
The green month
Green is everywhere in Shrawan: green bangles, green pote, green tika, mehendi on hands. The pote is the glass-bead necklace of married women. Green stands for the monsoon's new growth and for marital good fortune. Wearing it through Shrawan is considered auspicious for married women. Bangle sellers do a large share of their yearly business in these few weeks. Mehendi stalls appear on sidewalks that host none the rest of the year.
The custom has loosened pleasantly with time. Girls too young to be married wear the bangles because they like them. The mehendi patterns get more elaborate every year. The religious core — green as a prayer for the husband's long life — sits comfortably alongside the festival-fashion layer.
Bol Bam: the barefoot pilgrimage
Through Shrawan you will meet groups walking the highways in saffron and yellow, chanting "Bol Bam." These are Bol Bam pilgrims, and the discipline is specific. Walk barefoot. Carry river water in two pots slung from a decorated bamboo pole. Pour it over a Shiva linga at the journey's end. In Nepal the common destinations are Pashupatinath in Kathmandu and the temples along the Koshi in the east. The walk ranges from a day to over a week depending on the starting point.
If you drive Nepal's eastern highways on a Shrawan weekend, slow down. The pilgrim columns share the road, and they have right of way by custom if not by law.
What else falls in the Shrawan month
Two dates are worth marking. Nag Panchami, the serpent-deity worship day, falls on the bright-fortnight Panchami late in the month. Households paste a printed nag image above the doorway and offer milk and dubo grass. Late Shrawan then runs straight into the big Bhadra festivals. Janai Purnima falls on Bhadra 12 this year (August 28), with Gai Jatra the following day. The exact days for every one of these are on our holidays calendar, resolved for the current year. The daily panchang shows each day's tithi if you want to track the fortnights yourself.
Keeping Shrawan practically
If you want to observe the month without the full discipline, the accessible pieces are these. Visit a Shiva temple on any Monday morning, early. The queue at Pashupatinath before seven is a fraction of what it becomes by nine. Offer water; nothing more is required. If you fast, drink water freely. The monsoon heat is real, and the tradition does not ask for dehydration. Check the calendar before planning anything official for a Shrawan Monday. Government offices run normally, but half the people you need to meet may be fasting, and the temples' neighborhoods are gridlocked by mid-morning.
Shrawan asks little and gives a distinct texture to the month. There is a weekly rhythm of fasting and temple bells, green on every wrist, and pilgrims on the road. When the month ends, the calendar rolls almost immediately into the festival season proper.