Fasting and abstinence

Hindu fasts (upavasa) are usually part of a vrata, a vow undertaken for a deity, for spiritual merit or for the wellbeing of the family. Many devotees of Vishnu fast on Ekadashi, the eleventh day of each lunar fortnight, avoiding grains and beans. Mondays may be kept for Shiva and Tuesdays for Hanuman, and fasts accompany festivals such as Navaratri and the night-long vigil of Maha Shivaratri. On Karva Chauth, married women in northern India fast from sunrise to moonrise for their husbands’ long life. Fasts range from complete abstinence, even from water, to eating only permitted ‘fasting foods’ such as fruit, milk and certain flours.

Before his enlightenment, the Buddha practised severe fasting, then abandoned it as an extreme, choosing the ‘Middle Way’ between indulgence and self-mortification. Buddhism therefore values moderation rather than prolonged fasts. Theravada monks and nuns eat only between dawn and midday, and lay people may join them on uposatha days – the new, full and half moons – by taking eight precepts, including not eating after noon. Many Mahayana Buddhists keep a vegetarian diet, at least on certain days of the lunar month. In Tibetan Buddhism, the nyungne retreat combines fasting, silence and prostrations devoted to Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion.

In Jainism, fasting is a central form of tapas, austerity, a means of burning away karma and strengthening self-control. During Paryushana – eight days for Śvetāmbara Jains and ten for Digambara Jains, in late summer – many fast for one or more days. An upvas allows only boiled water from one sunrise to the next; ayambil permits a single plain meal without spices, oil, dairy or sugar; and many Jains avoid eating after sunset all year round. The festival ends in forgiveness, as Jains say ‘Micchami dukkadam’, asking pardon for any harm done. Some very old or terminally ill Jains undertake sallekhana, a supervised fast to the end of life.

Sikhism is unusual in setting fasting aside as a religious practice. Guru Nanak and the later Gurus taught that austerities, pilgrimages and fasts gain no merit if the heart is not devoted to God, and passages in the Guru Granth Sahib question those who starve the body while the mind remains unchanged. Sikhs are taught instead to live as householders, earn honestly, remember God and share what they have. The langar, the free communal kitchen of every gurdwara, expresses this ideal: rather than going without food, Sikhs feed all who come, whatever their faith or status. Some Sikhs nonetheless keep fasts drawn from regional custom.

The holiest fast of the Jewish year is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. For about twenty-five hours, from before sunset until nightfall the next day, adults abstain from food and drink, washing, anointing, leather shoes and marital relations, spending much of the day in synagogue praying for forgiveness. Tisha B’Av, which mourns the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem, is also a full-day fast. Several minor fasts, from dawn to nightfall, recall other moments of national tragedy, and the Fast of Esther precedes Purim. Jewish law exempts anyone whose health would be endangered, since preserving life overrides almost every commandment.

Jesus’ forty days of fasting in the wilderness inspired Lent, the season of penitence before Easter. Western Christians begin it on Ash Wednesday, when many receive a cross of ashes on the forehead. Catholics fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, eating one full meal and two smaller ones, and abstain from meat on Fridays in Lent; many Christians give up a luxury for the season. Orthodox Christians keep a stricter Great Lent, avoiding meat, dairy, fish, wine and oil on most days, and also fast on most Wednesdays and Fridays and before other great feasts. Many Christians also fast briefly before receiving Holy Communion.

Fasting in Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, is one of the Five Pillars. From dawn until sunset, adult Muslims abstain from food, drink, smoking and marital relations, and strive to avoid anger, gossip and wrongdoing. The day begins with a pre-dawn meal (suhur), and the fast is broken at sunset with iftar, often with dates and water, followed by evening prayers (tarawih). The sick, travellers, the elderly, and pregnant, nursing or menstruating women are exempt, making up the days later or feeding the poor. The month ends with the festival of Eid al-Fitr and charity for those in need.

The Bahá’í Fast is kept during ‘Alá’, ‘Loftiness’, the final month of the Bahá’í calendar, which usually runs from 1 or 2 March to 19 or 20 March. From sunrise to sunset, Bahá’ís between the ages of fifteen and seventy abstain from food and drink, while the ill, travellers, pregnant and nursing women and those doing heavy labour are exempt. Bahá’u’lláh described the Fast as a time of spiritual renewal: its purpose is above all prayer, reflection and detachment, the physical abstinence symbolising a turning away from selfish desires. The Fast ends with the joyful new-year festival of Naw-Rúz at the spring equinox.

In Daoism, zhai, originally meaning ‘purification’ or ‘fasting’, describes the abstinence from meat, alcohol, pungent vegetables and sexual activity that priests and participants observe before great rituals; the word came to name some of the rituals themselves. A more radical tradition, bigu, ‘avoiding grains’, taught that adepts could starve the harmful ‘three worms’ believed to dwell in the body and live instead on qi, herbs and controlled breathing, approaching immortality. Monks and nuns of the Quanzhen order are vegetarian, and many lay devotees, like Chinese Buddhists, eat vegetarian food on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month.

Fasting played a limited but real part in ancient Greek and Roman religion, often in imitation of a myth. At the Thesmophoria, an Athenian women’s festival of Demeter, the middle day was a fast (Nesteia), recalling the goddess’s grief for her lost daughter Persephone. Initiates into the Eleusinian Mysteries fasted, then broke their fast with kykeon, a barley drink, as Demeter herself was said to have done. According to the historian Livy, Rome instituted a regular fast in honour of Ceres in 191 BCE. Rules of purity before consulting an oracle or entering a sanctuary could also include abstaining from certain foods.