Chhath Puja

Significance and story

Chhath Puja is a Vedic festival dedicated to Surya, the Sun, and to Chhathi Maiya. It is observed on Kartik Shukla Shashthi — the sixth tithi of the waxing fortnight of the lunar month of Kartik. Because the tithi is the anchor, the Gregorian date shifts from year to year; the exact dates are computed from the panchang and listed on this page.

The observance is centred on Sun worship at rivers. Devotees offer arghya — water and prayers — to the setting Sun and, the following morning, to the rising Sun. The two offerings together frame the festival: the setting sun is honoured first, and the rising sun completes the vow. In many households the vrat is kept for the well-being of the family, and the discipline of standing in water at the riverbank is treated as the heart of the observance rather than an incidental detail.

Chhathi Maiya is worshipped alongside Surya. In the regions where the festival is strongest, she is understood as a protective mother figure, and the sixth tithi itself carries her name. The two — the Sun and Chhathi Maiya — are addressed together in the same ritual sequence, which is why the festival is often described simply as Chhath, after the shashthi tithi on which it falls.

How the date is fixed

The date of Chhath Puja is not fixed by the Gregorian calendar. It is fixed by the panchang, and specifically by the tithi Kartik Shukla Shashthi. The festival therefore moves each year, and the page above carries the computed dates for the current cycle.

Two further points explain why the date can appear to differ from one place or one calendar to another:

• The tithi, nakshatra or solar ingress is reckoned at a particular place. A tithi that begins or ends near sunrise can produce a one-day shift between cities.
• North Indian calendars commonly follow the purnimanta reckoning, while many calendars in other regions follow the amanta reckoning. The same festival can therefore be listed on what looks like a different day.

Dates shown here are computed for New Delhi sunrise with Lahiri ayanamsha. Readers outside that reference should treat the listed date as the standard panchang date and confirm local timings with their own panchang or a qualified jyotishi, since the arghya is offered at sunrise and sunset at the devotee's own riverbank or ghat.

Puja vidhi

The vidhi is simple in outline and demanding in practice. The essential sequence is:

• Snan and preparation — a purificatory bath and the preparation of the offerings, including the prasad and the soop.
• Sandhya arghya — the evening offering to the setting Sun, standing in or at the edge of the water.
• Usha arghya — the morning offering to the rising Sun, which completes the vow.

Households differ in the details: the number of offerings, the arrangement of the soop, the specific fruits and ther, and the length of the fast. These are family and regional traditions, and the panchang does not prescribe a single form. What is consistent across the regions where the festival is kept is the direction of the worship — toward Surya — and the setting — at a river, pond or other water body.

Regional variations

Chhath Puja is observed chiefly in Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Nepal. In these regions it is one of the most widely kept vrats of the year, and the riverbanks and ghats fill for both the evening and the morning arghya. Diaspora communities in other parts of India and abroad keep the same tithi and the same two offerings, often at a local water body or a prepared tank where a river is not available.

Because the observance is tied to the tithi and to local sunrise and sunset, the outward form varies more than the timing. Some families keep a strict nirjala fast across the period; others take a single meal. Some include a full kosi or a smaller circuit of the shrine or ghat. These differences are matters of family practice and local custom rather than of jyotish, and the panchang is not used to rank one form above another.

Where traditions differ — amanta and purnimanta reckonings, or North and South Indian conventions — this page notes the difference briefly rather than adopting one as correct. For a personal chart, the appropriate step is to consult a qualified jyotishi.

What to avoid

• Do not treat the listed date as a prediction about your own year. The festival date is a panchang calculation, not a personal forecast.
• Do not read health, financial, marital or legal outcomes into the vrat. The observance is devotional; it makes no promises of that kind.
• Do not assume one regional form of the vidhi is the only correct one. Family and regional customs differ, and the panchang does not settle those differences.
• Do not rely on a single calendar listing for a location far from New Delhi. Confirm the local tithi and the sunrise and sunset times with a local panchang.

Approached this way, Chhath Puja remains what the tradition describes: a disciplined offering to Surya and Chhathi Maiya on Kartik Shukla Shashthi, fixed by the panchang and kept at the water's edge.