ಛಠ್ ಪೂಜೆ | Chhath Puja

Chhath is the worship of Surya, the Sun, and of Chhathi Maiya, the goddess of the sixth day, who is held to watch over children. It is the great festival of Bihar, and is kept as well in Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and the plains of Nepal, and wherever people from those regions have settled. Its central day is the shashthi of Kartika shukla paksha, about a week after Deepavali, and it is also called Surya Shashthi, Dala Chhath and Pratihar. Because it falls in a bright fortnight, the month is Kartika in both the amanta and the purnimanta reckoning.

The four days

The observance runs over four days and three nights, from the chaturthi to the saptami.

1. Nahay khay, on the chaturthi: a bath, and a single clean meal.
2. Kharna, also called Lohanda, on the panchami: a day’s fast, broken at night with kheer made with jaggery, called rasiaav, and roti. From that night the long fast begins, without food or water.
3. The evening arghya, on the shashthi: standing in a river or a tank, those keeping the vow offer arghya to the setting Sun, holding the soop, the winnowing basket, filled with fruit and thekua.
4. The morning arghya, on the saptami: the offering to the rising Sun, after which the fast is broken.

The offerings are vegetarian and are made without onion or garlic. Thekua, a fried sweet of wheat flour and jaggery, is the one everybody names, with rice laddus and other sweets besides. The songs are the Chhath songs of Bihar. Those who keep the vow are called parvaitin; they are usually women, but men keep it too.

The stories

Tradition traces the worship to Karna, the son of Surya and Kunti, who stood in the water at dawn and dusk to honour his father, and to Draupadi, who is said to have kept it in exile. Another account names Sita among those who kept the Surya Shashthi. Whatever story a family tells, the rite itself is an offering to the visible Sun at the two moments when it meets the horizon.

Which day Anudina gives

Anudina gives Chhath on the day on which shashthi is running at sayahna, the last part of the daylight running into dusk, which is the hour of the evening arghya. The morning arghya is the following day. If shashthi covers that hour on two evenings, the first is taken. In 2026 the evening arghya falls on 15 November, with nahay khay on 13 November and the morning arghya on 16 November.

Anudina lists Chhath as a Bihar observance, shown when the reader has chosen the customs of the North. The same shashthi is Skanda Shashti in the South, a different festival on the same tithi. There is also a spring Chhath, Chaiti Chhath, in the month of Chaitra; Anudina does not list it at present.