The term Chaturmasya means four months. The term Chaturmasya Vrata is a Vrata to be observed for a period of four months.
The Poornima (full moon day) in the month of Ashadha is called ‘Guru Poornima’. Chaturmas starts on this holy day and ends on Kartik Poornima.
Sanyasis perform chaturmasya vrata wherein they stay in one place for either four or two months. According to the Vedic dictum पक्षा वै मासाः one ‘paksha’ or a fortnight is taken as one month, and traditionally the Vrata is observed only for two months.
However I'm more interested in the food restriction that are observed by different people over the period of these four months.
- Ex. Ekadashi of 1st Fortnight of Bhardapada to Ekadashi of 1st
- Fortnight of Ashwin month; milk is prohibited. Milk is not used even
for the abhishek (bathing of God) of Deities in temple or home.
Similarly for some time eating dicots is prohibited and so on.
So my questions are:
Which Shruti/Smruti talks about these food prohibitions in chaturmas?
Also I'm not sure as to why milk is prohibited during the above mentioned time of chaturmas but curd is allowed instead. Does any scripture shed any light on this?