P.V.Anandpadmanabhan

Chhath Puja is a festival connected with purity, devotion to the Sun God who is considered as the source of life on this earth and is regarded as wish fulfiller. 

Chhath Puja takes place during 6th day ( Shasthi) lunar fortnight of Kartik month (October last to mid November). The festival lasts for four days. 

The festival is celebrated with an aim to express thanks to Sun God for offering energy to earth continuously enabling the environment suitable for the people to live. 

In the evening arghya people express their thanks to Sun God for its work in growing their crops during the preceding year and morning arghya is considered as a request for a bountiful crop, peace and prosperity in the year to come. 

Devotees assemble at the ghats at rivers and ponds including Ganges and take a holy dip before preparing offerings (Prasad). The main constituent of the offerings are Thekua, which is a wheat based cake. 

Offerings are preferably cooked on earthen Chulha (oven). Some traditions are exercised with little difference varying from region to region and across the families with basic similarity. 

During the puja, offerings are contained in small, semicircular pans woven out of bamboo strips called soop. Chhath is a Hindu festival but many muslim families also participates in this holy festival. 

The ritual of Chhath puja provides the mental calmness (by detoxifying the body and mind), enhances the energy level and immunity, reduces the frequency of anger, jealous as well as lot of negative emotions. It is also believed that following the Chhath processes helps in slowing down the ageing process. Such beliefs and rituals of the Chhath make it the most significant festival in the Hinduism.

In ancient time the festival of Chhath was performed by Draupdi, the wife of “Pandavas” king of Hastinapur  during their exile from their kingdom. One day they were visited by 88 thousand wandering hermits ( Bhikshuk). According to the Hindu customs guest were treated heartily and offered foods in the reception. 

But Pandavas barely enough for themselves and thus were hardly in a position to fulfill their obligation as Grihastha  and offer meals to the visiting hermits. Seeing Pandavas in deep anguish, Draupdi asked for help to noble sage Dhaumya, who pleased upon her the merits of worshiping the Sun God. Draupdi was not only able to solve the immediate problem but her Sun worship helped the Pandavas later gain their lost Kingdom. 

The tradition of worshiping Sun God , the saviour of the life on earth had also found  in various countries round the globe also very common in  Egypt and Babylon the oldest civilizations of the world.