Today is honoured across a wide swathe of Eastern India as the centrepoint of the four-day Chhath Puja or Surya Shashti Vrat. The word Chhath comes from the Sanskrit word Shashti, meaning ‘sixth’. Chhath Puja falls six days after Diwali and is widely observed in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Nepal. A folkloric angle later involved an aspect of the Devi called Chhati Mayi, who grants children to childless parents, and protects them thereafter. But it is essentially an ancient festival in honour of Lord Surya, thanking the sun god for the completed seasonal harvest.
What makes the festival trebly special to devotees is its epic links. It is not a gender-specific festival, though nowadays we see pictures of mostly women performing this puja. However, no less than Sita Devi and Sri Rama are said to have performed Surya Shashti puja after returning from Lanka. Additionally, people in Munger, Bihar, believe that Sita performed this ritual there. Munger, formerly known as Monghyr, was originally Mudgagiri, founded by Chandragupta II in the ancient kingdom of Anga. It was one of the major cities in Eastern India, including undivided Bengal, during the Mughal period and British Raj. It is about 180 km east of Patna and was once the cultural capital of the region. I read that the Sitacharan (Sita’s footprints) temple, situated on a boulder in the middle of the Ganga at Munger, is the main centre of public faith for Chhath Puja.
Most practically for today’s world, Munger is the centre of the Bihar School of Yoga, established by the spiritual luminaries Swami Sivananda and Swami Satyananda. It celebrated its golden jubilee in 2013 with the World Yoga Convention, attended by delegates from over 56 countries and 23 Indian states. An akhand jyot, or eternal flame that was lit there over half a century ago still burns. In a personally meaningful way, the Bihar School of Yoga also deepens our link with Rama, connecting us as it does with Mahavishnu, the Mahayogin (Supreme Yogi) and Yogavidam-neta (the leader of those established in yoga). These are two of his epithets in the Vishnu Sahasra Namam, the Thousand Names of Vishnu. Moreover, in the famous verse 9.22 of the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna makes the powerful promise: “yoga-kṣhemaṁ vahāmyaham,” meaning "I carry the responsibility for the yoga and kṣhema of my devotees,” where yoga signifies gain and kshema, security.
I, too, learnt yoga once from one of the Munger School practitioners and can vouch for its monumentally calm approach. It was not flashy, aggressive yoga, but quietly centred on breathing and a gradual, harmonious flow of movement. Besides energising the body, I found it was deeply restful for the mind, especially an urban mind trying to cope with the toil and stress of our so-called modern lives. I no longer do yoga, though of course, I should, but what thankfully remains with me is the habit of taking deep, quiet breaths when I am stressed. Say, in one of Delhi-NCR’s vile traffic jams, or if there is a sudden problem with water, electricity, or the internet—the usual triggers of impatience and annoyance across modern India. So, we could reasonably argue that Munger's epic legacy has remained alive for us not only through the annual ritual of Chhath Puja, which we may or may not observe, but also in our daily lives through the blessing of yoga. And, it is a short step from doing a surya namaskar to thinking of Karna and Surya.
In the Mahabharata, Karna, as we know, was the King of Anga and had a special relationship with Surya. He is said to have performed this puja ahead of the Battle of Kurukshetra, wading into the river to pray and make his offerings. This practice remains an essential ritual of the festival to this day. Draupadi and the Pandavas are also said to have performed the Surya Shashti puja.
No festival is complete without its special food, and the offering for Chhath Puja is thekua. This ancient cookie is found in Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and southern Nepal. It's a deep-fried biscuit, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, typically made with wheat flour and jaggery, often flavoured with fennel and cardamom. It is pressed into pretty wooden moulds shaped like leaves and flowers before being fried. It’s available online if you’re interested.
I first tasted thekua courtesy of a Bihari friend and found it delicious, a simple but attractively presented treat. It can stay fresh in airtight containers for a month, and if made with wheat flour (not maida), jaggery (not refined sugar), and pure ghee (not oil), it has nutritional value, too. When I discovered that Rama and Sita had performed Chhath Puja, I wondered if they, too, ate thekua, and it became ‘Ramayana cookie’ to me ever after.
Just like eating curd rice is never ordinary if we recall that this was the packed lunch that Mother Yashoda gave Krishna when he went to graze the cows with the gopa boys. Vyasa says in the Srimad Bhagavatam, “Vaamey paney masrula kabalam tad phalanx aangulishu”, meaning, ‘His left hand held the ball of curd rice (on a leaf) and in the fingers of his other hand, he held the accompaniment’, which was either lemon or mango pickle. One cannot help but feel charmed and elated to think that we still eat the food Rama and Krishna ate, and it’s quite marvellous how our festivals keep the magic alive in so many ways.
Renuka Narayanan | FAITHLINE | Senior journalist
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)
