श्री संतोषी माता व्रत कथा

In a certain town there lived an elderly woman who had seven sons. Six of them were earning men, but the seventh and youngest had no work and brought nothing home. The mother favoured the six who earned and slighted the youngest: when she served the family their meals, she gave him only the leftovers of his brothers' plates.

The youngest son did not know this. He believed that his mother loved him as dearly as the rest, and he would say so proudly. His wife, who saw how the household treated both him and her, knew the truth; and one day she gently told her husband to watch for himself and see how his mother fed him.

On a day of feasting the son found a pretext to stay and watch. He saw that while his brothers were served fresh food, he alone was given their leavings. The truth wounded him deeply. He resolved to leave home, to go to a far country and make a fortune of his own, and to return only when he had something to call his own. He told his wife so, and set out, and journeyed to a distant land.

In that far land the youngest son took service with a merchant. He worked with such honesty and diligence that he prospered greatly, and in time he grew wealthy — but in his new prosperity he did not send for his wife, and the memory of his home grew dim.

In her husband's absence the wife was left to the mercy of her in-laws, and they treated her cruelly. They gave her the heaviest and meanest tasks — among them the fetching of firewood from the forest — fed her on scraps, and spoke to her with scorn. She bore it all with patience and never lost heart.

One Friday, as she carried home her bundle of wood, she came upon a group of women keeping a vrat together. She asked them what vrat it was and what it gave. They told her it was the vrat of Santoshi Mata — the Mother of Contentment — and that whoever kept it on sixteen Fridays with faith and a pure heart, taking nothing sour, would have her sorrows ended and her heart’s wish fulfilled.

The daughter-in-law resolved to keep the vrat. Every Friday she worshipped Santoshi Mata, offering gur and chana and taking nothing sour, and on each Friday she listened to the Mata's katha — and with all her heart she prayed for her husband's return.

Santoshi Mata was moved by her devotion. In the far country she appeared to the husband in a dream and reminded him of the wife he had left behind and of her suffering. His heart turned homeward at once; he gathered his wealth and journeyed back, and returned home a prosperous man.

Seeing her husband returned and wealthy, the wife knew it for the grace of Santoshi Mata. The two of them set up a household of their own, apart from the in-laws who had tormented her, and lived in comfort.

To give thanks, the wife prepared to perform the udyapan that completes the vrat, and called young boys to be fed, as the rite requires. But her husband's relatives, jealous of her good fortune, contrived to spoil it: they saw to it that sour food was brought among the boys at the meal. So the udyapan was broken, and Santoshi Mata was displeased.

Soon misfortune fell. The husband was seized on a false charge and taken away. The wife was struck with grief — until she understood that her udyapan had been spoiled by sour food, and that the Mata’s displeasure lay behind this calamity.

She kept the vrat again with redoubled devotion and performed the udyapan a second time, exactly as it should be done, with nothing sour anywhere near it. Santoshi Mata was pleased once more. The false charge against her husband was lifted and he came home, and in time the goddess blessed the couple with a son.

Then Santoshi Mata chose to reveal herself, and appeared at the house in a divine and awe-inspiring form. The jealous relatives fled from her in fear, but the devoted wife knew her at once, and bowed to her, and worshipped her with a full heart. The relatives, humbled, came back and begged forgiveness, and the Mother of Contentment, pleased with the wife’s unwavering faith, blessed the whole family. Whoever keeps the vrat of Santoshi Mata on sixteen Fridays with sincere devotion and a contented heart, taking nothing sour, has her sorrows removed and her heart’s wish fulfilled by the grace of the Mata.