PARV 1 OF 30 · CHAITRA
चैती छठ
Chaitra Shukla Chaturthi to Saptami (March–April)
"सुरुज देव के पहिल अरघ, साल के पहिल ठेकुआ"
Katha · The story
Chhath is kept twice a year, and the spring one is the elder and quieter sister of the great Kartik Chhath. The Puranas tell of King Priyavrat, who had no child. Rishi Kashyap performed a yagya for him and his queen Malini gave birth to a son, but the boy was born dead. As the king stood over the body ready to end his own life, a goddess descended and said: I am Shashthi, the sixth form of Prakriti, protector of children. Worship me and the child will live. The boy breathed. The king kept the vrat on the sixth day of the bright fortnight, and the vrat spread across the land of Magadh and Mithila.
Chaiti Chhath falls in the fortnight after Holi, when the wheat is golden and the first heat has not yet come. Fewer families keep it than in Kartik, usually those with a manauti, a vow made for a child's health or a wish granted, but the vratis who keep it do everything exactly as in Kartik.
Mahatva · Significance
Chhath is the only major Hindu festival where the setting sun is worshipped before the rising one. It honours Surya, the visible god, and Chhathi Maiya, the mother who guards children. It has no priest, no idol, no temple: the vrati speaks to the sun directly, standing in water. In spring it also marks the end of the agricultural year, with the rabi harvest in hand.
"केरवा जे फरेला घवद से, ओह पर सुगा मेड़राय"
A line everyone at the festival knows
Vidhi · How it is done in Malinagar
Thekua (wheat flour, gur and ghee, pressed in a wooden mould), kasar (rice flour laddoo), rasiao kheer, kaddu-bhaat, and whole fruits with the stalk on.
Everything is done with purity: new or freshly washed clothes, food cooked without onion or garlic, no leather at the ghat. The prasad is shared with everyone present, which is why there is always a stranger at your family's soop.