Wednesday, January 6, 2010

The Festival of Chhath

The Festival of Chhath
The People of Terai region of Nepal celebrate many festivals. Different festivals are connected with different cultural and religious significance. Particular gods and goddess are worshipped in distinct festivals. In chhath, the sun is worshipped.
During this festival, people worship the sun for their good health. It is said that a king was suffering from leprosy and T.B. in the ancient time. A great learned man of that time advised the king to worship the sun. The king did what he was advised. He worshipped the sun regularly for five years. Then he forget complete recovery. Since then a particular festival, which is called Chhath has been celebrated worshiping the sun as the god.
The festival of Chhath is celebrated for two weeks. The festival begins from Shukla Panchami. On the first day, a woman cooks rice in milk in the evening. The rice is offered to the sun. The rest of the rice is called Prasad. It is distributed to all the members of the family by her. All of them have it as Prasad with great respect to the sun. She prepares the required oferings and ritual items and keps them in a small basket. They are usually Thakuwa, Bhusuwa, rice, coconuts, fruits, flowers, incenses, lamps etc. Then she goes ro the river of a nearby pond for the worship. She stands wait-deep water and worship the seting sun with the ofering. Most of the devotes stay on the bank of the river of pond for the whole night. In the next morning, al of them worship the sun and go back home, with Prasad. Everybody has the Prasad with respect. It is also distributed to the neighbours. Thus, the festival of chhath is celebrated worshiping the sun for good health.
It is said that the main aim of this festival is to teach the people the importance of sunbath. It is good to worship the sun because the power, heat and light of the sun.


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