Chhath Puja Arghya Vidhi

Chhath is a four-day vow of thanks to Surya, the Sun, and to Chhathi Maiya, the mother goddess who guards children. It is kept chiefly in Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Nepal. The people who keep the fast are called vratins (the women among them are also called parvaitins), and men keep it too. The stories and the history of the festival are in the Chhath Puja festival page. This page gives the worship itself, in order, with the part that makes it unusual: standing in water and offering arghya, a gift of water and the harvest, to the setting Sun and then the rising Sun.

The days run from Chaturthi (the fourth tithi, or lunar day) to Saptami (the seventh) in the bright fortnight, the Shukla Paksha, of Kartika, the autumn month of October and November, a few days after Diwali. Shashthi, the sixth tithi, is the main day and gives the festival its name, chhath meaning sixth. Exact sunset and sunrise times differ from city to city and year to year, so we give no clock times. Use a local panchang (almanac) for your town, and plan to reach the water well before sunset.

A clean place to cook, and new or well-washed utensils; pages name earthen pots and clay stoves, and copper, brass or clay vessels, and say to avoid iron and non-stick pans. Rice, jaggery, milk, wheat flour and ghee. For the offering, a soop (a flat bamboo winnowing basket) or a daura (a deeper bamboo basket), thekua (a hard sweet of wheat flour, jaggery and ghee), rice laddus, sugarcane stalks, coconut, bananas, citrus, sweet potato, and other seasonal fruit, and a small lamp. A copper pot of water, with milk in it for the arghya. Ganga water or ginger water to break the fast. Pages also add turmeric and ginger plants, sindoor, and flowers; every family adds its own items, so ask the elders of the house. The food is vegetarian and cooked without salt, onion or garlic, at least for the prasad.

The numbered steps above follow the order the pages give. On the first day, Nahay Khay (bathe and eat), the vratin bathes, preferably in a river or other water, the house and the path to the ghat (the steps down to the water) are cleaned, and one simple meal is cooked and eaten: usually bottle gourd, chana dal and rice. It is the last full meal before the fast.

On the second day, Kharna, the vratin fasts through the day, without water on most accounts. After a short evening worship, a meal of rasiya, which is jaggery kheer (rice pudding), with roti is eaten and shared as prasad. A fast of about thirty-six hours, without food or water (nirjala), is said to begin after this meal.

The third day, Shashthi, is for preparing the prasad in strict purity. Late in the day the family walks to a river, pond or ghat, carrying the baskets. The vratin goes into the water, knee-deep or waist-deep, holds up the soop and offers arghya to the setting Sun: Sandhya Arghya, the evening offering. The vratin faces west. Songs for Chhathi Maiya are sung, and at home some families keep a night vigil and a kosi, five to seven sugarcanes tied into a canopy with lamps lit beneath it, and repeat it before dawn.

On the fourth day, Usha Arghya (usha means dawn), the vratin returns to the water before sunrise with fresh offerings, faces east and offers arghya to the rising Sun in the same way. The fast is then broken, which is called parana.

Pages agree on the main outline: the vratin stands in the water, the basket is raised, and water, and in many accounts milk too, is poured toward the Sun while the offerings are held up. One page describes the basket being waved in a circle as the water is poured through it. Sources differ on the words. One says no formal mantra is needed and the offering is silent, many chanting only Om Suryaya Namah. Another says to chant before pouring. Two almanac pages print the verse below, and one adds the lines Om Ghrini Suryaya Namah and Om Suryaya Namah for the morning.

एहि सूर्य सहस्रांशो तेजोराशे जगत्पते। अनुकम्पय मां भक्त्या गृहाणार्घ्यं दिवाकर॥ Romanised: ehi sūrya sahasrāṃśo tejorāśe jagatpate | anukampaya māṃ bhaktyā gṛhāṇārghyaṃ divākara ||. Come, Surya of a thousand rays, mass of light, lord of the world; have mercy on me, and accept the arghya given with devotion, maker of day. One of the two pages prints the first word as ऐहि; we give एहि, the form of the grammar. Neither page names a text for the verse, so it is best taken as a long-used formula, not scripture.

The fast is the heart of the vow. Pages describe the whole of it as about thirty-six hours without food or water, from the evening of Kharna to the Usha Arghya. That is hard, and it is not for everyone. Those who are ill, pregnant or elderly should ask a doctor first, and the pages we read do not discuss a milder form, so ask your family and doctor. Purity matters throughout: a clean kitchen, a bath, new or clean clothes, and prasad cooked without salt, onion or garlic. Some pages say the vratin wears yellow or orange. We could not verify the custom of sleeping on the floor that some people mention, so we do not state it.

Surya is the Sun god, whom the tradition honours as the giver of life and light. Chhathi Maiya is understood as Shashthi, the goddess of the sixth, who is said to look after children and give them long life. In the Devi Bhagavata Purana, Book 9, chapter 46, Shashthi, also called Devasena, is the sixth part of Prakriti, the creative power of the divine, a protector of children, and the wife of Skanda. It tells how King Priyavrata and Queen Malini had a stillborn son and how Devasena restored the child, and it says her worship is for the sixth day of each bright fortnight and for the sixth day after a birth.

A hymn to her, the Priyavrata Shashthi Devi Stotra, is cited as chapter 43 of the Prakriti Khanda of the Brahma Vaivarta Purana, verses 58 to 66. The chapters as we read them do not mention the Chhath vow by name. Wikipedia and almanac pages link the festival to this goddess and to Priyavrata, and folk tradition often calls her Surya's sister.

Chhath has no images, temple or priest; the vratin worships directly. Prayers for children's health and the family's happiness are what pages most often describe; whether they are granted is a matter of faith.

Chhath has few written formulas. The achamana (sipping water to purify), the sankalp (stating the vow in your own words) and the closing aarti and request for forgiveness (kshama prarthana) are the usual frame of any Hindu puja. The pages we read do not describe them separately for Chhath, so the steps mark them as the generic frame, and you may keep them short or follow your family.

Families follow the same four days but differ in the foods, the songs and the water. Where no river is within reach, pages say an indoor tank or a fountain can be used, and some cities restrict the use of beaches. Wikipedia notes a smaller Chaiti Chhath kept in Chaitra (March and April). After the vow, the prasad is shared with relatives, neighbours and passersby.