Pachchakkhan

Morning

Navkarsi

07:02

Porisi

09:22

Sadh Porisi

10:56

Purimaddh

12:29

Avaddh

15:37

Evening

Chovihar

18:45

What a pachchakkhan is

A pachchakkhan is a vow of renunciation taken for a stated period — most often a vow to abstain from food and water until a particular time of day. The word comes from the Prakrit pacchakkhāna, meaning a declaration made in front of oneself: a thing set aside deliberately, not merely gone without.

In Jain practice it is the most ordinary form of tapasya, and that is the point of it. The great austerities belong to a few; a pachchakkhan is available every morning to anyone, and the tradition treats the small vow kept faithfully as worth more than the large one attempted once.

What is renounced is not only the food. The vow is taken with a limit stated in advance, so that the mind knows where the boundary lies before appetite starts arguing with it. That is why the timing matters as much as the abstention.

Why the times change every day

These timings are not clock hours. They are fractions of the daylight period — the time between sunrise and sunset — so they move as the day lengthens and shortens through the year.

Porisi means a prahar, a quarter of the daylight. Purimaddh is the midpoint of the day. Avaddh is three quarters of it. On a long June day the gap between them is wider than on a short December one, and the same vow ends at a different clock time in each season.

Because they are reckoned from sunrise, they also differ by place. Sunrise at Ladnun and sunrise at Kolkata are close to an hour apart on the same date, so a single printed table cannot serve the whole country. That is why the timings here are published per city.

The vows in order

Navkarsi is the first: about forty-eight minutes after sunrise, two ghadi. It is the vow most people take daily, and it is short by design — it establishes the habit of beginning the day with a boundary rather than with a meal.

Porisi, sadh porisi, purimaddh and avaddh extend that boundary progressively through the morning and afternoon: a quarter of the day, three eighths, a half, three quarters. Each is a step further, and which one a person takes depends on their capacity and their intention that day.

Chovihar closes the day at sunset. It renounces all four kinds of intake — food, water, dried fruit and mouth fresheners — until the next sunrise. It is the basis of the practice of not eating after dark, which in the tradition rests on both restraint and on not harming the small lives that move at night.

How it is taken

The vow is taken before the period begins, not during it — a resolve made after the fact is not a pachchakkhan. It is usually taken in the morning, before sunrise where the vow starts at sunrise.

Where a teacher is available the vow is taken in their presence; otherwise it is taken oneself, with the resolve stated clearly. The tradition is consistent that the intention matters more than the formula, but also that the words should be known rather than improvised.