PARV 26 OF 30 · AGHAN
नवान्न · विवाह पंचमी
Aghan, with the rice harvest · Aghan Shukla Panchami (November–December)
"नया धान के खीर, सीता-राम के बियाह"
Katha · The story
Nava-anna is the new grain. When the first rice of the kharif is cut and threshed, it is not eaten until it has been cooked as kheer and offered to the household deity, the Sokha Baba, the ancestors and the cow. The elders say the first grain belongs to those who made the field, and the family eats only what is left after that.
Vivah Panchami is the wedding day of Ram and Sita at Janakpur, in Mithila. King Janak had vowed that his daughter would marry whoever could lift and string Shiva's bow; Ram lifted it and it broke, and on the fifth day of Aghan's bright half Sita was married to him. For Mithila this is the wedding of its own daughter, kept with a small puja at the temple and, in Malinagar, long remembered as the favourite day for fixing marriages.
Mahatva · Significance
Nava-anna is the harvest thanksgiving of a rice village. Vivah Panchami is the day the land of Mithila married into Ayodhya; no Maithil celebrates it with the joy of a wedding, because a daughter leaving home is also a loss, and that is exactly why it is kept quietly.
"जनकपुर में बाजे बधैया, सीता के बियाह"
A line everyone at the festival knows
Vidhi · How it is done in Malinagar
Nava-anna kheer, chura-dahi from the new rice, and the Aghan vegetables: cauliflower, peas, new potatoes.
Aghan is also the month the Malinagar wedding season opens, so if you are invited to one, this is why.