Attham and Chhath: Fasts of Two and Three Days

Among the many forms of fasting that shape Jain religious life, the multi-day fasts known as Chhath and Attham hold a place of particular importance, extending the discipline of a single day's abstention across two or three continuous days. The names derive from the terms for the number of meals foregone, and these fasts represent a deepening of the practice of austerity that stands at the centre of Jain spiritual effort, undertaken by devout laypeople as acts of devotion and self-conquest.

Fasting in Jainism is understood as one of the principal forms of tapa, or austerity, through which the soul is purified and the bonds of karma are loosened. It is not regarded as deprivation for its own sake but as a voluntary discipline that weakens attachment to the body and its appetites and directs the mind toward spiritual concerns. The tradition preserves a graded series of fasts of increasing severity, from the taking of a single restrained meal in a day to the complete abstention from food across many days, and Chhath and Attham fall within this series as fasts of intermediate and considerable rigour.

The fast known as Chhath extends across two full days, during which the observer takes no food at all, permitting only boiled water within the prescribed daylight hours, and it spans the meals that would ordinarily be taken over that period. The fast known as Attham is more demanding still, extending across three continuous days of complete abstention from food, again with only boiled water allowed. To keep such fasts requires careful preparation and considerable resolve, and they are undertaken with attention to the body's limits and, traditionally, with the guidance of elders and ascetics.

These fasts are kept above all during the great festivals of the Jain year, when the concentrated spiritual atmosphere of the community supports the discipline. The three-day Attham is especially associated with Paryushana, during which many devotees undertake it as a central observance of the festival, and multi-day fasts are common throughout the sacred seasons and on days of particular sanctity. Some devotees undertake still longer fasts, extending the discipline across a week, a fortnight or more, in acts of extraordinary devotion.

The keeping of a multi-day fast is far more than a physical regimen. The days of abstention are filled with spiritual practice, with temple worship, the recitation of sacred formulas, the study of scripture, the discipline of equanimity, and the ritual of reflection and repentance. The fast provides the framework for an intensified devotion in which the quieting of the body's demands opens space for the concerns of the soul. Those who complete such fasts are honoured within the community, and their perseverance is celebrated as an example of the discipline the tradition holds in high esteem.

Attham, Chhath and the other multi-day fasts thus embody the Jain conviction that the deliberate mastery of the body advances the soul toward liberation. They are undertaken freely, as offerings of devotion and as exercises in self-conquest, and their observance during the sacred seasons of the year weaves the practice of austerity into the collective life of the community. In their recurring practice these fasts keep alive the tradition's ancient reverence for tapa and testify to the enduring capacity of the devout for discipline in the service of the highest goal.