Chhath Puja: The Festival With No Idols

What is Chhath Puja?

Chhath Puja is a four-day fast to Surya, the Sun god, and Chhathi Maiya.

It is kept mainly in Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and the Nepal Terai.

The Indian diaspora has carried it abroad too.

It falls in the bright half of the month of Kartika, a few days after Diwali.

Sources: Svastika · National Herald.

Why is there no idol, temple or priest?

The fasting person stands in the water alone. No priest speaks for them.

There is no idol to bathe and no temple to enter.

The offering goes straight to the Sun.

Some environmentalists link this to older nature-worship traditions, because nature itself is the shrine.

Sources: National Herald · Bodhi Bihar.

Why does the first offering go to the setting Sun?

Most Sun rituals in India greet the sunrise. Chhath does the opposite.

The first big offering goes to the sun that is leaving.

Only next morning do devotees greet the rising Sun.

So the festival thanks the light on its way out before asking anything of the new light.

Sources: Svastika.

What happens on each day?

The four days are fixed by the lunar day, not by the clock.

Nahay Khay is day one. The vrati bathes in a river and eats one simple meal.

Kharna is day two. It is a full day of fasting without water.

The fast is broken after sunset with kheer made of jaggery, with roti and fruit.

Sandhya Arghya is day three. Devotees stand in water and offer arghya to the setting Sun.

Usha Arghya is day four. They offer arghya to the rising Sun. Then the fast ends.

Sources: Svastika · Sudathi.

The four days at a glance

The lunar day decides the date, so the English date moves each year.

Different almanacs can give different dates, and neither is wrong.

The two arghyas follow your own town’s sunset and sunrise.

Sources: Sudathi · Svastika · Bodhi Bihar.

How long is the fast?

After the Kharna meal, the long fast begins.

It runs about 36 hours with no food and no water.

It ends only after the morning offering.

Sources: Svastika · Bodhi Bihar.

What goes into the offering basket?

The offering is carried in a soop, a flat bamboo winnowing fan.

Inside are thekua, a wheat and jaggery biscuit, plus sugarcane, coconut, banana and turmeric root.

Only simple satvik food is eaten. It is cooked without onion or garlic.

Families cook the prasad at home. Men often carry the baskets on their heads to the ghat.

No salt, onion or garlic goes into the dishes.

Sources: Svastika · Sudathi · Bodhi Bihar.

Why does the Sun matter so much?

The Sun is the one god everyone can see. It gives light, warmth and the harvest.

Rig Veda hymns to Surya are chanted while the offering is made.

The festival is kept twice a year, in Chaitra and in Kartika. The Kartika one, after Diwali, is the bigger.

Before the fast, many families clean the house and the street. The aim is purity, not show.

In the water, the vrati thanks the Sun for health and for the children’s long life.

Sources: National Herald · Sudathi.

Where is Chhath kept today?

Its heartland is Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. The Nepal Terai keeps it too.

In Delhi, devotees take a dip in the Yamuna before sunset.

It has also travelled with the Indian diaspora to Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, the United States and the United Kingdom.

The solar worship under it is older and wider than any one state. Early records show Sun worship among hill and forest communities of the Vindhyan belt.

Sources: Bodhi Bihar · National Herald · Svastika.

Who is Chhathi Maiya?

Chhathi Maiya means “Mother of the Sixth”. She is the Puranic goddess Shashthi, a guardian of children.

The Brahmavaivarta Purana describes her worship on the sixth day after a child is born.

Devotees often say she is the Sun’s sister. This is folk belief, not scripture.

Some sources link her to Usha, the Vedic dawn goddess.

Sources: Svastika · Bodhi Bihar.

What do the old stories say?

Tradition links Chhath to the epics. Folk accounts say Sita kept the vow, and Draupadi and Karna are also named.

One account says Kunti kept it after escaping the house of lac.

No text we could open gives a verse that prescribes Chhath.

The Mahabharata does show Yudhishthira worshipping Surya while standing in water. Karna worships Surya at midday.

Sources: Svastika · National Herald.

Which story do people tell at the ghat?

One popular tale begins when Rama and Sita return to Ayodhya after exile.

It says Sita kept the Sun vow on the sixth day after the coronation.

Another tale says Draupadi kept it to win back the Pandavas’ lost kingdom.

A third names Karna, the son of the Sun, who ruled Anga near Bhagalpur.

These are tradition. They are lovely to tell, but no text gives a chapter and verse.

Sources: Bodhi Bihar · National Herald.

Does a Veda prescribe Chhath?

The Rig Veda has fine hymns to Surya. But it never describes a four-day riverbank fast.

The Vedic Sun and the Puranic goddess look like later layers on an older folk festival.

The first dated record under its own name is George Grierson’s Bihar Peasant Life of 1885.

Sources: Svastika.