Sunday Fasting (Ravivar Vrat): Every Bhanu Saptami, Computed

Sunday belongs to Surya, and there are fifty-two of them in 2026 and fifty-two in 2027. The Ravivar vrat is the simplest of the planetary fasts to keep and, it turns out, the simplest to reason about, for a reason nobody states plainly: the Sun is never retrograde and it is never combust. It cannot be. Retrogression is measured relative to the Sun's own motion and combustion is defined as nearness to the Sun, so both conditions are logically unavailable to it.

The contrast with Wednesday is stark. Of the 104 Wednesdays in these two years, 41 have Mercury combust and 20 have it retrograde. Of the 104 Sundays, none have Surya in either condition, because neither exists for the Sun. So only two things vary from one Sunday to the next: the sign the Sun is in, and whether a lunar node is sitting on it. Both are computable, and this page computes them from the site's DE421 ephemeris table in the sidereal Lahiri frame.

The Sundays in Each of the Sun's Three Dignity Months

The Sun is exalted in Aries, in its own sign in Leo, and debilitated in Libra, and since the sidereal signs are measured along the Sun's own path, each of those is one solar month, once a year, for everybody. The Sundays that fall wholly inside them:

• Exalted in Aries — the Sun enters Aries on 14 April 2026 at 09:29 IST and leaves on 15 May 2026 at 06:19, and four Sundays fall inside: 19 and 26 April, 3 and 10 May 2026. In 2027 the four are 18 and 25 April, 2 and 9 May.
• Own sign, Leo — the Sun enters Leo on 17 August 2026 at 07:54 and leaves on 17 September 2026 at 07:48; four Sundays again, on 23 and 30 August and 6 and 13 September 2026, then 22 and 29 August and 5 and 12 September 2027.
• Debilitated in Libra — the Sun enters Libra on 17 October 2026 at 19:48 and leaves on 16 November 2026 at 19:39. This month gets five Sundays in 2026 — 18 and 25 October, 1, 8 and 15 November — and only four in 2027, on 24 and 31 October and 7 and 14 November.

The five-versus-four is nothing but where the weeks fall; the Libra month is in fact the shortest of the three, at 29 days 23 hours 51 minutes against 30 days 20 hours 50 minutes for the exalted Aries month. That the exaltation lasts almost a day longer than the debilitation every single year is a consequence of the Earth's orbit rather than of the zodiac, and the Surya remedies page works through why. The deepest point of the debilitation, the tenth degree of Libra, is reached on 27 October 2026 and on 28 October 2027 — given as dates, because a shastra degree does not carry minute precision.

Bhanu Saptami: All Nine (भानु सप्तमी)

Bhanu Saptami — also Surya Saptami — is a Sunday on which the tithi is Saptami, and it is the day the tradition marks specifically for Surya rather than generally. The seven-day week and the roughly fifteen-day tithi cycle drift past each other, so the coincidence is uncommon. Computing the tithi at sunrise in Delhi gives nine across these two years:

• 2026 — 25 January (Shukla Saptami), 8 February (Krishna), 7 June (Krishna), 21 June (Shukla), 18 October (Shukla), 1 November (Krishna). Six.
• 2027 — 8 August (Shukla), 5 December (Shukla), 19 December (Krishna). Three.

Six in one year and three in the next looks like it must mean something. It does not: it is what two cycles of unequal length produce as they slide past one another, and a third year would give a different count again. What is worth noticing is where they fall. Two of 2026's six — 18 October and 1 November — land inside the one month of the year the Sun is debilitated. Neither of 2027's three does.

The usual caveat, stated rather than hidden: these are the days on which the tithi at sunrise in New Delhi is Saptami. A printed panchang can place the vrat a day either side when the tithi turns close to sunrise, and it varies with location. Take the list as the computed condition and let your own panchang or your pandit fix the observance. The daily panchang gives the tithi for any date.

18 October 2026: The Sunday Worth Marking

Three things are true of that one Sunday. The tithi at sunrise in Delhi is Shukla Saptami, so it is a Bhanu Saptami. The Sun entered Libra on 17 October 2026 at 19:48 IST, the evening before, so the 18th is its first full day debilitated for the year. And it is the first of the five Sundays inside that month. A Surya observance day falling on the first whole day of the Sun's annual weakness is about as apt a coincidence as this calendar produces, and if you keep the Ravivar vrat only occasionally, that is the date to keep it on.

The second Bhanu Saptami in the same window, 1 November 2026, is at Krishna Saptami, and it falls five days after the Sun passes the tenth degree of Libra — the deepest point. Between them the two cover the month reasonably well.

23 August 2026: The Sun Meets Ketu in Its Own Sign, on a Sunday

The Sun passes each lunar node once a year, so there are four such conjunctions in these two years — two with Rahu, two with Ketu. Exactly one of the four falls on a Sunday. The Sun is exact with Ketu on 23 August 2026 at 02:26 IST, at 5°34′ Leo, which is the Sun's own sign; and 23 August is the first of the four Sundays inside that Leo month. So a single Sunday carries the Sun at its most dignified by sign and in its closest company with a node, and that combination does not recur in the two-year window.

The other three, for completeness: the Sun is exact with Rahu on 27 February 2026 at 22:35 IST at 14°53′ Aquarius, exact with Rahu on 9 February 2027 at 23:05 at 26°30′ Capricorn, and exact with Ketu on 4 August 2027 at 06:07 at 17°13′ Cancer.

Two clarifications, because this is where most writing on the subject overreaches. The node here is the mean node, the smooth position Indian panchangs reckon Rahu by, not the wobbling true node. And a Sun–node conjunction is not an eclipse: an eclipse also needs the Moon in the right place and is keyed to the true node, so this page makes no claim at all about eclipse dates or visibility. What the conjunction describes is the natal configuration the tradition calls grahan dosh, the Sun standing with a node in a birth chart.

8 August 2027, and the One Sunday Sankranti

2027's first Bhanu Saptami, 8 August, sits in an unusually busy patch of sky. The Sun was exact with Ketu four days earlier, on 4 August 2027, so it is still within a few degrees of the node. And Mercury is exact with Ketu on 8 August 2027 at 03:16 IST, before sunrise on the vrat day itself. Two grahas on the same node inside five days, with a Surya observance day in the middle of it — the sort of thing a printed calendar cannot show you because it does not compute conjunctions at all.

One last piece of arithmetic. Of the twenty-four Sankrantis in these two years, exactly one falls on a Sunday: the Sun enters Pisces on 15 March 2026 at 00:59 IST. Four fall on a Wednesday, which is why the Budhwar page has more Sankranti coincidences to report than this one does.

How the Ravivar Vrat Is Kept (रविवार व्रत विधि)

• Arghya at sunrise — water poured towards the rising Sun from a copper vessel, standing facing east. This is the core of the observance and everything else is addition. Look at the Sun through the falling water rather than directly.
• The fast — one meal, taken before sunset rather than after it, which is the distinguishing feature of the Sunday vrat: Surya's fast ends with daylight, not after dark. No salt in the stricter form, and no oil.
• The colours and foods — red or saffron cloth, red flowers, wheat and jaggery. Salt and oil are the two things traditionally set aside.
• The mantra — the Surya beej mantra ॐ ह्रां ह्रीं ह्रौं सः सूर्याय नमः (Om Hraam Hreem Hraum Sah Suryaya Namah) 108 times at sunrise, or the Aditya Hridaya Stotra, or the Gayatri.
• Surya Namaskar — the physical form of the same observance, and the part most likely to be sustained.
• The donation — wheat, jaggery, copper or red cloth, given to someone who needs it.
• The count — a run of twelve, twenty-one or thirty consecutive Sundays is usual, often begun on a Bhanu Saptami or on the first Sunday of the Sun's own Leo month. A twenty-one-Sunday run will pass through two or three of the Sun's twelve signs, which is worth knowing but changes nothing about how to keep it.

The vrat is kept for what Surya governs: health and vitality, the eyes and the heart, the relationship with one's father, standing and authority, and dealings with government. If the reason for considering it is a reading that named a weak Sun, work through the Surya remedies first — a weak Sun is a much narrower category than it is usually made out to be, and roughly eight per cent of charts have the debilitation that actually justifies the phrase. The other planetary fasts follow the same shape: Monday for Shiva, Tuesday for Hanuman, Wednesday for Budh, Thursday for Guru, Friday for Shukra and Saturday for Shani.

Where the Numbers on This Page Come From

Ingress and conjunction instants are DE421 values from the site's committed ephemeris table — apparent geocentric longitude, true equinox and ecliptic of date, Lahiri ayanamsa subtracted, times in IST — the same table the monthly rashifal pages are checked against. Solar month lengths are the differences between consecutive Sankranti instants. Tithi and weekday facts come from the site's day-by-day panchang, computed from the same kernel and read at sunrise for New Delhi. The tenth-degree crossings are given as dates rather than minutes on purpose, and combustion appears nowhere on this page because it cannot apply to the Sun.

Have Your Own Surya Read First

Whether the Ravivar vrat is the right observance for you depends on the Sun in your chart, not on the Sun in this week's sky. A free kundli prints its sign, degree and house and the nodes' positions, which settles the diagnosis in one look; a consultation with a pandit settles what to do about it and whether a run of Sundays is the remedy that fits.