Chitragupta Puja Vidhi (Kalam-Dawat Puja), Lekha Format and Katha

On Yama Dwitiya, Kayastha families — and many others who live by the pen — worship Chitragupta, the keeper of the record of every deed, together with their pens, inkpots and account books. Below: the samagri list, the puja step by step, the lekha (letter) format, mantras and the katha of King Saudas.

• Picture or idol of Chitragupta Maharaj
• A chowki and a clean yellow or white cloth
• A new pen (traditionally a reed kalam) and an inkpot (dawat) with ink
• Your everyday pens, account books, ledgers, diaries and the children’s school books
• A sheet of white paper for the lekha
• Roli, chandan, haldi, akshat, kalava (mauli), flowers and durva
• Ghee lamp, dhoop or agarbatti, camphor
• Kalash with water and a little Ganga jal
• Naivedya: sweets, fruits, paan and supari
• A little money as dakshina

1. Prepare. Bathe and wear clean clothes. Clean the puja place, sprinkle Ganga jal, spread the cloth on the chowki and place Chitragupta’s picture on it, facing east or north. Set the kalash on the right and arrange the pens, inkpot, books and ledgers in front.
2. Lamp and Ganesha. In the aparahna muhurat — 1:10–3:20 PM in New Delhi on 11 Nov 2026; see your city — light the ghee lamp and worship Ganesha with roli, akshat and durva.
3. Sankalp. Take water, akshat, a flower and a coin in the right hand, say your name, gotra and the day (Kartika Shukla Dwitiya), and resolve to worship Shri Chitragupta and Yama Dharmaraja; let the water fall before the deity.
4. Invoke and worship Chitragupta. Offer a flower with the pranam mantra (below). Then offer water, roli, chandan, akshat, kalava, flowers, dhoop and the lamp, and place the naivedya before him.
5. Worship the pen and inkpot. Tie kalava on the pen and the inkpot, apply roli and chandan, and offer akshat and flowers. Do the same for the account books and children’s books — mark a small swastik in roli on the ledgers.
6. Write the lekha. With the newly worshipped pen, write the lekha (format below), sign it and place it before Chitragupta with the pen on top.
7. Katha. Read or listen to the katha of Chitragupta and King Saudas (below), with akshat in the hand; offer the akshat at the end.
8. Aarti and prayer. Do the aarti with the ghee lamp or camphor, recite “Om Shri Chitraguptaya Namah” 11 or 108 times, ask forgiveness for the year’s mistakes, and share the prasad. The pen may now be used again.

Families vary — some write only the mantra lines and the prayer, some list the year’s main earnings and spending, students write the subjects they will study. Keep it truthful: the point of the lekha is to stand before the keeper of accounts with an honest one of your own.

The katha is told as a conversation in the Puranas: Yudhishthira asks Bhishma what merit lies in Yama Dwitiya, and Bhishma answers.

The birth of Chitragupta. When Brahma had created the worlds, he gave Dharmaraja Yama the duty of giving every being the fruit of its deeds. Yama soon came back: the deeds of countless beings, done in countless ways, were beyond any one judge to keep track of. He asked for a helper — wise, truthful and skilled at keeping records.

Brahma closed his eyes and sat in meditation for a thousand years. When he opened them, a dark, radiant man stood before him with a pen in one hand and an inkpot in the other. Asked who he was, the man said he knew no father or mother — he had come forth from Brahma’s own body. “Then you are Kayastha, born of my body,” said Brahma, “and your name is Chitragupta. Go to Dharmaraja and write the account of every deed, good and bad.” Chitragupta worshipped the Goddess and received the boon of long life and unshakeable authority; he married Shobhavati (Iravati), daughter of the sage Susharma, and Nandini (Dakshina), daughter of Manu, and their sons became the ancestors of the Kayastha lines.

King Saudas. Long ago in Saurashtra there ruled a king named Saudas who had never done a single act of dharma. He stole, chased other men’s wives, mocked the good and was proud of his own cruelty. One Kartika Shukla Dwitiya he rode into a forest to hunt and came upon a Brahmin sitting before two small images, worshipping them with lamps and flowers.

“What are you doing?” the king asked. “This is Yama Dwitiya,” the Brahmin replied. “I am worshipping Dharmaraja and his scribe Chitragupta. Whoever does this vow is freed from the fear of Yama’s punishment.” Half curious, half afraid, Saudas sat down and did the worship himself — lamp, flowers, naivedya — ate only once that day and stayed awake that night. Afterwards he forgot about it, and later remembered and kept it again.

In time Saudas died, and Yama’s messengers dragged him in chains to the court of the dead. “Read his account,” Yama told Chitragupta. Chitragupta read out the long list of the king’s wrongs — and then added: “But on Yama Dwitiya he worshipped you and me with devotion, fasted and kept vigil. By the merit of that vow he cannot be sent to hell.” Yama agreed, released him, and Saudas went to a higher world.

“So,” Bhishma told Yudhishthira, “whoever on this day worships Dharmaraja and Chitragupta, honours the pen and inkpot, listens to this story and then eats at a sister’s home with gifts for her, gains long life, prosperity and freedom from fear of Yama.”

The katha itself ends at a sister’s table, so many families do the kalam-dawat puja and the Bhai Dooj tilak in the same aparahna. Bhai Dooj tilak vidhi and Yama–Yamuna katha →

Do

• Finish the puja in the aparahna while Dwitiya lasts
• Use the newly worshipped pen for the first writing of the year — the lekha
• Let children bring their books and pens
• Keep the lekha with your puja things after the puja

Don’t

• If your family rests the pen after Diwali, don’t write before the puja
• Don’t put pens and books on the bare floor or step over them
• Don’t write falsehoods in the lekha