In short
Chaturmas is the four-month Jain monsoon retreat, roughly from Ashadh Shukla Chaturdashi to Kartik Purnima. Ascetics stop travelling and stay in one place to avoid harming the small life that flourishes in the rains, and devote the period to study and teaching.
Chaturmas — literally four months — is the monsoon retreat during which Jain ascetics stop travelling and remain in one place. Paryushan falls within it, and is its high point.
Why the travelling stops
Jain ascetics walk everywhere, barefoot, throughout the year. In the monsoon that becomes impossible to do without harm. The rains bring insects, sprouting seeds and organisms in every pool of standing water, and each step risks destroying lives that cannot be avoided or even seen. Staying still is not a pause in the practice of ahimsa — it is the practice.
The four months
The retreat runs roughly from Ashadh Shukla Chaturdashi to Kartik Purnima, about a hundred and twenty days. Sadhus and sadhvis settle in a single town, temple or upashray for the whole period. For the lay community this is the year's richest opportunity: ascetics who are otherwise always moving on are present daily, teaching.
What lay people do
Householders take up simpler food, avoiding root and green vegetables for the season. Many increase samayik, pratikraman and scriptural study. Many take a vow for the whole four months rather than only for the festival days. The observance is deliberately unhurried — four months is long enough for a practice to become a habit rather than an effort.
Chaturmas and Paryushan
Paryushan falls in Bhadrapada, near the middle of the retreat, when the community is already settled into simpler living and daily instruction. That is why it can ask so much in eight or ten days: the ground has been prepared for weeks. See Paryushan 2026 dates for both traditions.