PARV 7 OF 30 · JETH
बट सावित्री · बरसाइत
Jeth Amavasya (May–June)
"बर के गाछ, सावित्री के धागा"
Katha · The story
Savitri, daughter of King Ashwapati, chose Satyavan, a prince living in exile in the forest, though the sage Narad warned her he had one year to live. She married him anyway. On the appointed day she followed him into the forest; he fell dying under a banyan tree, and Yama himself came to take his soul. Savitri followed Yama, and with each boon she argued from him, she won back Satyavan's life, her father-in-law's kingdom and sight, and a hundred sons. Yama, outwitted by her devotion and her reasoning, let Satyavan live.
Because he died and lived again under the bat, the banyan, married women in Bihar circle the oldest banyan in the village on this day with raw cotton thread, asking for their husbands' long life, and listen to the katha in its shade. In Malinagar it is the banyan by the pokhar.
Mahatva · Significance
The vrat is for the husband's life and the marriage's strength, but the katha is really about a woman's intelligence; Savitri wins by argument, not by weeping. The banyan, which never dies and whose roots become trunks, stands for the family line.
"बर के छाहरि सावित्री बैठलि, जम से मांगलि सुहाग"
A line everyone at the festival knows
Vidhi · How it is done in Malinagar
Bhigoya chana, ripe mango and litchi, puri and kheer in the evening.
Unmarried girls in Mithila sometimes keep it too, for a good husband, and nobody minds.