Sankashti Chaturthi

The Krishna paksha Chaturthi of every lunar month, kept for Ganesh as Vighnaharta. Sankashti means deliverance from sankat, and the vrat is usually taken for one particular difficulty rather than as a routine. The fast runs the whole day and is broken only after the moon has risen and been offered arghya. When it falls on a Tuesday it is Angarki Sankashti.

Next date: 2026-09-30

Deity: Ganesh

vidhi

Bathe at sunrise, wear clean red or yellow clothes, and take the sankalp before Ganesh, naming the difficulty you are keeping the vrat for.,Place the murti facing west or north, bathe it with water and panchamrit, and wipe it dry.,Apply a sindoor tilak and offer twenty-one blades of durva tied in bunches of three, with red flowers, akshat, chandan, dhoop and a ghee lamp.,Offer modak or laddoo as bhog — twenty-one where you can — along with a banana and a little jaggery.,Chant Om Gam Ganapataye Namah one hundred and eight times, and read the Sankatnashana Ganesh Stotra or the Ganesh Chalisa.,Listen to the Sankashti katha in the evening and do the aarti.,When the moon rises, offer arghya — water poured from a copper lota with a little raw milk, chandan and akshat in it — look at the moon, then at Ganesh, and only then break the fast.

katha

Parvati, going to bathe and wanting no one at the door, made a boy from the ubtan of her own body and set him there to guard it. Shiv returned and was refused entry by a child he had never seen, and in the anger of that moment the boy's head was struck off. When Parvati's grief made plain what had been done, Shiv had the head of the first north-facing creature brought — an elephant — and gave the boy his life again. Then he gave him more than that: no worship anywhere would succeed unless he was worshipped first. He was named Ganapati, lord of the ganas, and Vighnaharta, the remover of obstacles. There is a second story that binds Ganesh to the moon. Having eaten his fill of modaks, he was riding his mouse when it startled at a snake and stumbled; his stomach split and the modaks spilled out. Chandra, watching from above, laughed at him. Ganesh cursed the moon that anyone who looked at it would be falsely accused. The devas pleaded, and he narrowed the curse to a single tithi — the Chaturthi of Bhadrapada, which is Ganesh Chaturthi, and no other. On Sankashti, which falls in the dark half and is a different tithi altogether, the moon is not avoided but honoured: the fast ends only when arghya has been offered to it. The two rules are often confused, and they belong to two different days. Sankashti means deliverance from sankat. The vrat is kept when something will not move — a case, an illness, a decision, a debt — and it is held that Ganesh clears the way for whoever keeps it with faith. Angarki Sankashti, when the tithi falls on a Tuesday, is said to carry the fruit of a full year of them.

mantra

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samagri

A Ganesh murti or picture, and panchamrit for the abhishek,Twenty-one blades of durva, fresh and unwilted,Red flowers, sindoor, akshat, haldi and chandan,Ghee lamp with a cotton wick, dhoop and camphor,Modak or besan laddoo, banana and jaggery for the bhog,A copper lota for the moon arghya

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