Rishi Panchami is a festival that is celebrated in the month of August immediately after Teez Puja. Hindu women attach undue importance to this festival of Rishi Panchmi because they believe that by observing Rishi
Panchmi fast and by paying homage to Rishies on this day of the festival, they will be blessed and forgiven for all their sins that they are bound to commit during their menstrual cycle by not following the strictures laid down for them by their religion.
Rishi Panchami is not a festival but a fasting day observed by women to pay obeisance to the Sapta Rishis which means seven sages and to get purified from Rajaswala Dosha.
Hinduism gives highest priority to purity and there are strict guidelines to maintain purity of the body and the soul. In Hinduism women are believed to be contaminated during their menstrual cycle. During menstrual cycle women are not allowed to enter in the kitchen for cooking, to participate in any religious activities and to touch any family members. Avoiding these guidelines creates Rajaswala Dosha. Rishi Panchami fasting is advised to get rid of Rajaswala Dosha.
In Nepal, women observe a strict fast on the Rishi Panchami day. The fasting is dedicated to Lord Shiva and is also undertaken by men in some regions. The fast is broken in some places after the Rishi Panchami Pooja. Women have a special bath on the day using Datiwan herb. Special Kalash is prepared on the day and prayed to. Women in large numbers visit Lord Shiva temples.
During the observance of this Vrata, the women should visit river or any water storage in the afternoon, take cow dung with them, clean their teeth with medicinal herbal stick, take cold-water bath. They should arrange the idol of Saptarshi on small wooden platform in the form of seven bettlenuts and perform pooja. On this day they should eat only those fruits, which grow below the earth (soil) and strictly avoid eating any eatables, which are prepared from the grains grown from the toiling of bullocks. This is what is told as a procedure
A certain king Sitasale asked Brahma to tell him of a fast, which would bestow the quickest result. Brahma replied that Rishi Panchami fast was the one such by virtue of which all sins are washed away.
