Adhyaya 192

Agni begins teaching the Caturdaśī-vratas, declaring the fourteenth lunar-day observance to be bhukti-mukti-pradāyaka—bestowing both enjoyment and liberation—especially through fasting and Śiva worship in Kārttika. The chapter lists variants: (1) Śiva-Caturdaśī, performed under precise calendrical conjunctions, granting longevity, wealth, and pleasures; (2) Phala-Caturdaśī (or on the twelfth/fourteenth), stressing a fruit diet, abstention from liquor, and gifting fruits in charity; and (3) Ubhaya-Caturdaśī, fasting and worship of Śambhu on the fourteenth (and also the eighth) in both bright and dark fortnights, promising heaven. It further prescribes nakta (night-meal) observance on Kṛṣṇa Aṣṭamī and Kṛṣṇa Caturdaśī for worldly enjoyments and an auspicious posthumous destiny. Ritual details follow: bathing on Kārttika Kṛṣṇa Caturdaśī, Indra worship with dhvaja-shaped poles, and finally the Ananta rite on Śukla Caturdaśī—worship of Hari as Ananta with darbha arrangement and a water vessel, offering a rice-flour pūpa (half to a brāhmaṇa), reciting Hari’s story at a river confluence, and tying the consecrated thread on hand or neck for prosperity and happiness.