Chhath Puja 2019

Chhath is nearly unique in worshipping the setting sun before the rising one. The sun is thanked as it declines, on the evening of Shashthi, and greeted as it returns the following dawn on Saptami.

Roughly thirty-six hours without food or water, beginning after the Kharna meal on the second evening and ending only after the Usha Arghya on the fourth morning.

Thekua and the offerings are made in a state of strict purity — no salt, nothing tasted while cooking, and the fire is a mud stove fed with mango wood.