Chhath Puja

The hardest and best-loved of the Surya vrats, kept on Kartik Shukla Shashthi for Chhathi Maiya and Surya Dev. It runs four days — Nahay-Khay, Kharna, the sandhya arghya to the setting sun and the usha arghya to the rising one — with a nirjala fast of about thirty-six hours at its centre. It is the one great observance where the setting sun is worshipped before the rising sun, and it is kept for children — their birth, their health, their long life. No priest is needed; the vratee, the family and a clean ghat are the whole apparatus.

Next date: 2026-11-15

vidhi

Nahay-Khay (Chaturthi): bathe in a river or pond — or at home with Ganga-jal added to the water — clean the whole house, and let the vratee eat one satvik meal in the day: kaddu-bhaat of lauki, chana dal and arwa rice cooked in pure ghee.,Kharna (Panchami): fast through the day; in the evening, after pooja, take gur ki kheer (rasiao) with roti, cooked on a clean chulha. The nirjala fast of about thirty-six hours begins after this one meal.,Make the prasad at home in complete shuddhata — thekua of wheat flour, jaggery and ghee, and rice laddoos (kasar) — on a clean chulha, after bathing, and without tasting anything.,Fill the soop and daura: thekua, kasar, a bunch of bananas, a water-filled coconut, sugarcane, singhara, radish, dabh lemon, paan-supari and a lit diya. The daura is usually carried to the ghat on the head by a man of the house.,Sandhya arghya (Shashthi): stand waist-deep in the water; as the sun sets, offer arghya of water and raw milk from the lota — turning slowly with the soop raised in both hands while family members pour the arghya.,At night, back home, do kosi bharai if a manauti was made — earthen lamps lit under a canopy of sugarcane stalks.,Usha arghya (Saptami): reach the same ghat before dawn and offer arghya to the rising sun in exactly the same way.,After the morning arghya, take Chhathi Maiya's prasad and water as the paran, and distribute thekua to everyone present at the ghat.

katha

King Priyavrat and his queen Malini had a kingdom and no child. On Maharishi Kashyap's counsel a yajna was performed and a son was born — born lifeless. The king carried the infant out and, past all consoling, prepared to give up his own life, when a devi appeared before him: Shashthi, the manas daughter of Brahma, who protects children and grants them to those who worship her. She touched the child and he stirred and cried. Priyavrat kept her vrat on the Shashthi of Kartik's bright half, and from his house it spread to every house — she is the one the vrat calls Chhathi Maiya. The Surya side of the vrat is older still. Karna, son of the Sun, stood waist-deep in water each day and offered arghya before giving daan; Draupadi is said to have kept this vrat when the Pandavas had lost everything, and Sita to have offered arghya on the Ganga's bank near Munger. Chhathi Maiya is held to be Surya's own sister, which is why the two are worshipped together — and why the vrat's first arghya goes to the setting sun, honouring the one the whole world turns away from.

mantra

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samagri

Bamboo soop (two or three) and a daura or basket,Wheat flour, jaggery and pure ghee for the thekua; rice for the kasar laddoos,A bunch of bananas, a water-filled coconut, sugarcane stalks, singhara, radish and dabh lemon,Paan, supari, whole haldi and ginger plants, and sindoor,A brass or copper lota for the arghya, with a little raw milk,Earthen diyas, ghee or mustard oil, wicks, dhoop and matches,Fresh clean clothes for the vratee — a saree or dhoti,Ganga-jal and a kalash

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