A poor Brahmin’s daughter was beautiful & devout, but a sage who read her hand found tough line of marriage. Worse, he warned, if she wed she would be widowed at once.
The remedy was strange. In a nearby village lived a washerwoman named Soma, chaste & quietly powerful in her devotion. If the girl could earn her blessing, fate itself could be turned.
So the girl went in secret. Each morning before Soma woke, she swept the house & finished every chore, then slipped away. Puzzled, Soma lay in wait, caught her, and on hearing her plight was moved. She pressed the sindoor from her own parting onto the girl’s forehead.
In that instant Soma’s ailing husband died. The merit had passed. Yet Soma did not waver. It was Somvati Amavasya, so she walked to the peepal, circled it 108 times, and only then drank water. Her husband breathed again.
That is why women still circle the peepal on this day.