Chhath Puja
छठ पूजा
Four days of water, fasting and the rising sun
The most beloved festival of Mithila and Bihar — four days of extraordinary discipline in which devotees stand in river water to offer arghya to the setting and rising sun.
The Story
Where it comes from
Chhath is among the oldest continuously observed festivals in the Indian subcontinent, and it is addressed to a deity anyone can see: Surya, the sun. Alongside Surya is Chhathi Maiya, understood in Mithila as the guardian of children and of the household’s wellbeing.
The festival is woven into the Ramayana and Mahabharata in popular memory — some traditions hold that Sita observed a sun vrat in Mithila, others that Draupadi and the Pandavas kept it during their exile. What is certain is that Chhath, unlike almost every other major Hindu festival, needs no temple, no priest and no idol. It requires a river, the sun, and a family willing to keep a very hard fast.
The person who keeps the vrat is called the parvaitin. Most are women, though men keep it too. The central fast is nirjala — without food and without water — and it runs roughly thirty-six hours, from the evening of Kharna until the sun rises on the fourth morning.
Significance
Why it matters
- A festival of gratitude to the sun — the one deity visible to everyone, worshipped without idol, temple or priest.
- Chhathi Maiya is invoked for the health and long life of children, making it deeply a family observance.
- Famously egalitarian: the ghat belongs to everyone, and prasad is shared across every household that passes by.
- Purity and restraint matter more than expense — the offerings are fruit, sugarcane and hand-made thekua.
Rituals & Traditions
How it is observed
- Day 1
Nahay Khay — bathe and eat
The parvaitin bathes in a river or pond, brings home water for cooking, and eats one sattvic meal — usually kaddu-bhat, bottle-gourd with rice and chana dal, cooked without onion or garlic. The house is scrubbed clean; from here on the kitchen is ritually guarded.
- Day 2
Kharna — the last meal
A day-long fast ends after sunset with rasiaw-kheer (jaggery kheer), roti and fruit, eaten in silence. Once this meal is finished the nirjala fast begins — no food, no water, for the next thirty-six hours.
- Day 3
Sandhya Arghya — offering to the setting sun
The whole family walks to the ghat carrying bamboo soop and daala loaded with thekua, sugarcane, coconut, banana and seasonal fruit. The parvaitin stands waist-deep in the water and offers arghya to the setting sun. Diyas are floated; the songs begin.
- Day 4
Usha Arghya — offering to the rising sun
Before dawn the family returns to the same ghat. Arghya is offered to the first light, the vrat is broken with sharbat and a little prasad, and the parvaitin takes blessings. Thekua is then distributed to everyone — neighbours, strangers, children at the ghat.
The Mithila Thread
What makes it Maithil
- In Mithila, Chhath is not one festival among many — it is the year’s emotional centre. Households that have moved to Delhi, Mumbai or abroad plan the entire year’s travel around it.
- Thekua, the wheat-and-jaggery prasad pressed in carved wooden moulds, is made at home over days. The moulds themselves are often inherited.
- The ghats of the Kosi, Kamla, Bagmati and Ganga fill with families in the Maithil belt — Darbhanga, Madhubani, Samastipur, Saharsa, Sitamarhi — and the singing carries across the water from one group to the next.
- Aripan, the Maithil floor art drawn in rice paste, marks the courtyard and the path to the ghat.
Songs of Chhath Puja
4 Maithili recordings — play them without leaving Mithila Jodi.
- Kelwa Ke Paat Par · Sharda Sinha
- Kelwa Ke Paat Par (Lyrical) · Sharda Sinha
- Pahile Pahil Chhathi Maiya · Sharda Sinha
- +1 more
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