Religious fervour grips Chhath devotees

PATNA: Lilting songs sung amid tall sugarcane sticks, jute-knitted containers heaped with fruits, lit diyas, coconuts and the famous `thekua', wafts to your ears -- "he chhathi maiya, tohe arag chhadaib", "Maiya ke arag chhadaib, suruj ke arag chhadaib" -- when Chhath lovers are metamorphosed into the Chhath mode post Diwali.
On the fourth day of Shukla Paksha of Kartik, lakhs of devotees along the Indo-Gangetic plains, chiefly Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, begin the four-day Chhath festival, in continuance of a tradition that goes back to posterity, carrying forward India's living tradition of worshipping the divine creator and nourisher -- the Sun God.Today, lakhs of Biharis settled in other parts of India and even abroad perform Chhath.
Legend has it that Draupadi, the wife of the Panch Pandavas, performed Chhath when in exile from Hastinapur. As many as 14 shlokas have been dedicated to Usha -- or Chhathi Maiya -- in the earliest of the Vedas, the Rig Veda. Usha has sometimes been mentioned as the Sun's beloved and other times as the Sun's wife, and therefore the name Chhathi Maiya. Chhath, also performed by some Muslims, is a worship of the Nirakar Brahma, the non-dualist existence of the creator and the created.
Chhath is celebrated twice a year, once in May-July called Chaiti Chhath, and once in October-November called Kartik Chhath.
In the four-day festival, the first day begins with the ritual bathing (preferably in the Ganga). On the first day, `arwa' chawal, kaddu (gourd), the price of which escalates to Rs 100 a kg during Chhath, and bajka is cooked in the daytime.
The second day, called Kharna or Lohanda, the `parvaitin' (the fasting person offering `arghya') fasts with not a drop of water or morsel of food going into her mouth. She starts, with assistance of womenfolk of the house, cooking huge quantity of `prasad', mainly `kheer' (rice cooked in jaggery sans milk) and puris, on mud chulhas. The `parvaitin' then fasts, without food or water, for the next 36 hours. The third day begins with the fasting woman cooking `thekuas' and decorating jute-knitted `soops' with coconuts, diyas, soaked gram, apples, `kasar' (made of powdered rice, black sesame seeds and jaggery), `thekuas', dry fruits, besides tall sugarcane sticks and entire stalks laden with ripe bananas for offering as `arghya' to the "Astachalgami Surya."
Then begins the long, barefoot trek to the banks of Ganga which takes at least two-three hours, with the river changing course in recent times. Some devotees, wish fulfilled, do "sashtang dantwat" (prostrate) all the way from home to the riverfront.
The fasting women (with vermilion covering the tip of the nose to the end of the hair parting) and men then stand in waist-deep water and, just as the sun is about to set with the sky blazing saffron red, offer `arghya' to the "Astachalgami Surya" (setting Sun). The `parvaitin' performs `parikrama' (circumambulation) for the number of `soops'.
Often, families trek back home, only to begin the entire process all over again at 3 am the next morning. Many, however, stay back in tents for the night.
The fourth morning, at dawn, the `parvaitin' again offers `arghya' to the "Uditachal Surya" (rising Sun) with the same set of `soops', signifying the continuity of the setting-rising phenomenon of the sun. It is only after this, that the `parvaitin' breaks her fast with the `prasad'.
It is perhaps the only time of the year that people, forgetting differences of caste, colour and creed, stand alongside and pay obeisance to the Sun. Incidentally, it is also the only time of the year that Patna, and other places, remain crime-free.