Chhath, Sonepur Mela and Festivals of Bihar: Key Facts

The festival calendar of Bihar is unusual in two ways. First, its biggest festival, Chhath, needs no temple, no idol and no priest: a family carries its own offerings to the nearest river or pond and the worship is done standing in the water. Second, several of its fairs are market events as much as religious ones, so a single date can be asked about in a culture question and in an economy question. For an examination the chapter is held by fixing each festival to its month, its deity or purpose, and its district, because that is the form the question takes.

Chhath, the festival of the Sun

Chhath is observed for the Sun God, Surya, together with Chhathi Maiya, and takes its name from the sixth day, shashthi, of the bright half of Kartik, on which the main worship falls. It runs over four days. The first, Nahay Khay, is a day of bathing and of eating pure food cooked without onion or garlic. The second, Kharna or Lohanda, ends with a single meal of kheer and roti after a day without water, and from that evening the fast is kept without food or water. The third day is Sandhya Arghya, when the women keeping the fast, called vratis, stand in the river or pond and offer water and prasad to the setting sun. The fourth is Usha Arghya, the offering to the rising sun, after which the fast is broken, which is called parana. The offering is carried in bamboo baskets, the soop and the daura, and the chief prasad is thekua, a hard sweet of wheat flour and jaggery, with rice laddu, sugarcane, banana and coconut beside it. The feature that examiners like is that the setting sun is worshipped first and the rising sun afterwards, a reversal found in very few Indian festivals. A second, smaller Chhath called Chaiti Chhath is kept in the month of Chaitra, and the festival is observed well beyond Bihar, in Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and the Terai of Nepal.

Sonepur, the Harihar Kshetra fair

Sonepur in Saran district stands where the Gandak joins the Ganga, opposite Patna, and the fair held there from Kartik Purnima is called the Harihar Kshetra Mela, because the place is held to be where Hari, that is Vishnu, and Har, that is Shiva, meet; the Harihar Nath temple is its centre. It is described as the largest cattle fair in Asia, and it runs for about a month, with animals, handicrafts, a theatre ground and a market that draws traders from several states. The two facts to fix are the confluence, Ganga and Gandak, and the starting day, Kartik Purnima.

The other fairs of the state

Mithila and Anga: the regional festivals

North Bihar keeps a set of festivals of its own. Sama Chakeva begins on Kartik Purnima, the same day as the Sonepur fair, when sisters shape small clay birds, Sama and Chakeva, play with them through the nights of the season of migratory birds and at the end send them off with songs for their brothers. Madhushravani is kept in Shravan by a woman in the first year of her marriage, with thirteen days of worship of the snake deities and of Gauri. In the Anga country around Bhagalpur the snake goddess is worshipped as Bishahari, and the sung story of Bihula, who brought her husband back to life, belongs to this festival. Jitiya, kept by mothers in the dark half of Ashwin without food or water, is common to the whole state and to the eastern plain beyond it.

Gaya, Rajgir and the fairs of the season

Gaya holds the Pitrapaksha Mela for a fortnight and more in the dark half of Ashwin, when families come to offer pind daan for their ancestors at the Vishnupad temple and at the appointed spots along the Falgu, which is why the town is called a place of liberation. Rajgir, the old capital of Magadha, holds its Malmas Mela in the intercalary month that returns about once in three years, when pilgrims bathe in the hot springs, and a separate Rajgir Mahotsav of music and dance is held by the state. Makar Sankranti in January is marked across Bihar with chura, dahi and tilkut, the sesame sweet for which Gaya is known, and Teej, Durga Puja with the Jhijhiya dance of Mithila, and the Buddha festivals of Bodh Gaya complete the year.