Chhath Puja Vidhi, Samagri List and Vrat Katha

• Bamboo soop (winnowing trays) and a daura or dala (bamboo basket) — one soop per wish or per family member
• Thekua (wheat flour, jaggery and ghee) and rice laddu (kasar)
• Five sugarcane stalks with leaves (for the Kosi canopy)
• A whole bunch of bananas, coconut with water, sweet lime / big citron (dabha nimbu), oranges, apples, pomegranate
• Seasonal produce: sweet potato, suthni, radish, singhara (water chestnut), amla, fresh turmeric and ginger plants
• Supari, paan, cloves, cardamom, sindoor, akshat, flowers
• Earthen lamps, ghee, cotton wicks; a hathiya (clay elephant) and earthen kosi pots for the Kosi
• Copper or brass lota for arghya water; raw cow milk to add to it
• New cotton clothes for the vrati — a saree for women, a dhoti for men
• Clean firewood or mango wood and a new earthen chulha for cooking the prasad (traditional)

1. Purify the home (Nahay Khay). Clean the house and kitchen thoroughly. The vrati bathes — in a river if possible — and eats one meal of kaddu-bhaat, chana dal and rice cooked in ghee with rock salt (no onion or garlic). The family eats after the vrati.
2. Kharna. The vrati fasts all day without water. After sunset, kheer of rice and jaggery (rasiao) and roti are cooked on the new chulha, offered to Chhathi Maiya on a banana leaf, and eaten by the vrati in silence; the family then takes the prasad. From now the 36-hour nirjala fast begins.
3. Prepare the prasad. On the third day, thekua and kasar are fried in ghee in a clean kitchen — traditionally by the vrati or women of the house, without tasting. Wash the fruits and arrange everything in the soops and daura, with a lamp in each soop.
4. Go to the ghat. In the afternoon the men carry the daura on the head to the river, pond or a clean water tank at home, singing Chhath geet. Reach 30–45 minutes before sunset.
5. Sandhya Arghya. The vrati enters the water waist-deep facing west, holds up each soop in turn, and family members pour water mixed with a little raw milk from a lota over its edge as the Sun touches the horizon. Light the lamps; take five parikramas in the water.
6. Kosi (if vowed). Families who made a wish or whose wish was fulfilled set up the Kosi that night in the courtyard or at the ghat: five sugarcane stalks tied into a canopy, with lamps, the hathiya and earthen pots filled with prasad beneath, and songs through the night.
7. Usha Arghya. Before dawn return to the same ghat and stand in the water facing east. Offer arghya to the rising Sun in the same way, then pray to Chhathi Maiya for the children and the family.
8. Paran. The vrati breaks the fast with a little ginger and jaggery or the prasad and water, after touching the feet of elders. Prasad is shared with everyone at the ghat and in the neighbourhood.

For a longer prayer to the Sun, read the Aditya Hridayam on the morning of Usha Arghya.

Priyavrat and Shashthi Devi. The Brahmavaivarta Purana tells of King Priyavrat, son of Svayambhuva Manu, who had no children. After the sage Kashyapa performed a yajna, the queen Malini bore a son — but the child was stillborn. As the grieving king prepared to give up his own life at the cremation ground, a radiant goddess appeared in a celestial chariot. She was Devasena, Shashthi Devi — the sixth part of Prakriti and protector of children. She touched the child and he came to life. She asked the king to spread her worship, and since then she is honoured on the Shashthi tithi as Chhathi Maiya.

Draupadi and the Pandavas. When the Pandavas lost their kingdom in the game of dice, the sage Dhaumya told Draupadi to keep the Shashthi vrat and worship Surya. She did so with devotion, and the Pandavas in time regained what they had lost.

Karna, son of Surya. Karna, born of Surya, is said to have stood for hours in the waters of the Ganga every day offering arghya to his father. His strength and generosity were the Sun’s blessing — and the custom of offering arghya standing in water is traced to him in Anga, today’s Bhagalpur–Munger region.

Sita at Munger. A Bihar tradition says that after returning from Lanka, Sita kept the Chhath vrat on the banks of the Ganga at Munger at the bidding of the sage Mudgal; the Sita Charan temple there is still visited during Chhath.

Do

• Keep the kitchen and utensils for prasad separate and spotless; use rock salt (no ordinary salt) in the Nahay Khay and Kharna meals
• Sleep on the floor and keep a sattvik routine through the four days
• Reach the ghat early, keep children close and stay in shallow water
• Use fruits and soops that are whole and fresh; wash everything in clean water

Don’t

• No onion, garlic, meat or alcohol in the house for the four days
• Don’t taste the prasad while making it, or let it be touched with unwashed hands
• Don’t use plastic or thermocol at the ghat or float it in the river
• Don’t keep the fast against medical advice — pregnant women, the elderly and those with illness can keep a lighter form