Extended fasting produces a set of reported states that Jain fasters describe with striking consistency — lightness, a sharpening rather than dulling of attention after the first difficult days, reduced need for sleep, and an unexpected cheerfulness that observers comment on. The physiology of ketosis accounts for a good deal of it and Jain practitioners are generally not interested in that account, but neither is the tradition mystical about it. What is theologically distinctive is that the fast is not penitential: there is no deity to atone to, no sin to expiate, and no forgiveness being sought. In the tradition's own physics, tapas heats and dries the accumulated karmic matter so that it separates from the soul — nirjara, shedding — which is a mechanical claim about what is happening rather than a moral one. Long fasts of thirty or more days are completed publicly and celebrated with processions, and the completion of a varshitap is a family event. Medical supervision has become normal in urban communities and is a subject of internal argument.