Chhath Maiya (Pilgrimage)

geo:

• country: "India" state: "Bihar" district: "Pan-Bihar / UP eastern / Jharkhand" lat: 25.5941 lon: 85.1376 temples:
• name: "Chhath Maiya (Pilgrimage) Temple" district: "Pan-Bihar / UP eastern / Jharkhand" state: "Bihar" country: "India" note: "Sun-sister folk-goddess of Bihar" lat: 25.5941 lon: 85.1376 festivals:
• name: "Chhath Pūjā" month: "Kārttika Ṣaṣṭhī (Nov)" duration: "4 days" note: "The most strict fast in Hinduism — 36 hours without water" stories:

Chhath Maiya (Pilgrimage)

Chhaṭhī Maiyā is the Sun-goddess (Sūrya's sister Ṣaṣṭhī) of the Bihari, Eastern UP, Jharkhand, and Mithila diaspora. Her four-day festival Chhath Pūjā is one of the most austere of all Hindu festivals — fasting without water for 36 hours, offering to the rising and setting sun.

Chhath is the archaic Vedic word for "six" (Sanskrit ṣaṣṭha); the goddess Ṣaṣṭhī is mentioned in the Ṛgveda (and later in the Atharvaveda). She is one of the few Vedic goddesses who survives intact in popular practice today. The festival is primarily women's observance: the fasting woman (vratī) maintains ritual purity for 4 days, culminating in dawn-sunlight prayer (arghya) in a river or pond. The chhaṭha ghat at Patna's Ganga shore sees over a million women performing arghya on the final morning.