Masa 3 of 12
Jyeshthaజ్యేష్ఠం
The hottest month, and the one that carries the strictest fast of the year.
- Named for
- Jyeshtha
- Ritu
- Grishma (summer)
- Sun crosses
- Vrishabha into Mithuna
- Roughly
- May-June
About Jyeshtha
Jyeshtha is the hard middle of the summer, and the calendar answers it with Nirjala Ekadashi — the one Ekadashi kept entirely without water, which is also the one held to carry the merit of all twenty-four if the others could not be kept. Bhima is the figure attached to it, having been told this single fast would suffice for a man who could not go hungry. Ganga Dussehra, marking the river's descent to earth, falls in the same fortnight.
Festivals and observances
- Ganga Dussehra — shukla dashami
- Nirjala Ekadashi — shukla ekadashi, kept without water
- Vat Savitri Vrata — purnima in the south and west, amavasya in the north
- Jyeshtha Purnima — Jyeshtha purnima
How the month gets its name
The month is named for the nakshatra in which its full moon falls. Because a lunar month is about 29.5 days and the moon returns to the same nakshatra in about 27.3, the match is close rather than exact — the full moon lands in the named nakshatra most months and in a neighbouring one occasionally. The name does not change when it does; the rule fixed the names long ago and they stay put.
Everything here follows the amanta convention used across the Telugu country and the south, in which the month ends at the new moon. In the purnimanta reckoning of the north the month ends at the full moon instead, so every waning-fortnight day carries the following month's name. The days are identical; only the label differs.