Chhath Puja 2027 Date

About Chhath Puja

One of the few Hindu rituals with no priest, no idol and no temple — devotees stand waist-deep in a river and offer water themselves to the setting and then rising Sun. The vow at its heart is a 36-hour fast without even a sip of water, kept mostly by women of Bihar, Purvanchal and the Mithila belt of Nepal.

The partner deity is Chhathi Maiya, understood as a form of the Vedic dawn goddess Ushas, invoked as the protector of children. That maternal thread runs through the festival's origin stories — King Priyavrata's stillborn son revived by her grace, Sita keeping the vrata to pray for sons, Draupadi and Kunti observing it after escaping the lac palace. Karna, son of Surya, is said to have begun the practice of standing in water to offer arghya. The four days build slowly: Nahay Khay (a Ganga dip and a single sattvic meal), Kharna (a sunset meal of jaggery kheer, after which all food and water stop), then Sandhya Arghya to the setting Sun and Usha Arghya at dawn, when the fast finally breaks. The signature offering is a bamboo soop heaped with thekua, sugarcane and coconut.