PARV 14 OF 30 · BHADO
चौरचन · चौठचंद
Bhado Shukla Chaturthi (August–September)
"चौरचन के चान, हाथ में दही-केरा"
Katha · The story
Chaukchanda is Mithila's own festival and it rests on a curse. Ganesh, riding his mouse one night, fell, and the moon laughed at him. Ganesh cursed the moon: whoever sees you on this night, the fourth of Bhado, will be falsely accused of theft. The gods begged him to soften it, and he did: whoever looks at the moon with an offering in hand, having worshipped Ganesh, will be spared. Krishna himself, the story says, once saw the moon bare-handed on this night and was accused of stealing the Syamantak jewel, and cleared his name only after a long search.
So on Chaukchanda evening, every Maithil, from the oldest to the youngest, stands in the courtyard holding a fruit, a sweet, a banana leaf with dahi on it, and looks up at the fourth-day moon through the offering before eating it.
Mahatva · Significance
It is the Maithil form of Ganesh Chaturthi, kept in the courtyard and not the pandal. It honours Ganesh as the remover of obstacles and the moon as the keeper of the calendar. Its lesson, that a false accusation is the worst fate and that an empty hand invites it, is told to every child.
"चौठ के चनरमा, दही-चूड़ा हाथ"
A line everyone at the festival knows
Vidhi · How it is done in Malinagar
Kheer, dahi, banana, kasar, pedakiya; in many houses the first makhana of the year.
Children in the city are reminded by a morning phone call: tonight, don't look at the moon with an empty hand.