12 November 2086
- Tithi
- Shukla Shashthi · until 10:32 AM
- Nakshatra
- Uttara Ashadha
- Sunrise – Sunset
- 6:47 AM – 4:59 PM
- Abhijit Muhurta
- 11:33 AM – 12:14 PM
Festival · 2086
Chhath 2086
Falls on 12 November 2086 in San Francisco, as computed from the real sky for that city.
The portal of Festivals
Today's three riddles
Turn a card. Answer all three rightly and this portal is sealed in your sky. New riddles every morning.
Wishing you a blessed Chhath
May the setting and the rising Sun both find you grateful, and may the river you stand in stay clean for those who come after.
हिरण्मयेन पात्रेण सत्यस्यापिहितं मुखम् । तत्त्वं पूषन्नपावृणु सत्यधर्माय दृष्टये ॥
hiraṇmayena pātreṇa satyasyāpihitaṁ mukham tattvaṁ pūṣannapāvṛṇu satyadharmāya dṛṣṭaye
Its meaning
The face of truth is covered with a golden vessel. Uncover it, O Pūṣan, for one whose law is truth, that he may see.
Īśa Upaniṣad 15
When, for San Francisco
12 November 2086
Shukla Shashthi · until 10:32 AM
Do
Go to the river, pond or lake nearest you and clean a stretch of its bank before anyone stands there to offer arghya.
Leave aside
Leaving plastic and offerings to rot on the riverbank.
Send this as your wish
Add your name and send the link. It opens as your wish, with the timing for their own city, the verse, and how to keep the day.
Wishing you a blessed Chhath
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In 21,944 days
The sky that day
- The Moon
- Shukla Shashthi
- The Sun is in
- Tula
- The Moon is in
- Makara, in Uttara Ashadha
In Kartika the Sun is sinking toward the shortest days and the Moon of the sixth day is a waxing crescent, not yet half full; the rite turns to the Sun itself, at the two moments it touches the horizon.
What the day is
Four days for Surya and Chhathi Maithili — offered standing in water, to the setting sun before the rising one. The tradition's most demanding vrata and its most beautiful: thanks given to the light that is leaving before the light that is coming.
The story
3 stories the day keeps. Turn each card.
1 / 3Four days at the waterTurn ↻
On the first day, Nahay Khay, the vrati bathes and eats one simple meal. On the second, Kharna, the day passes without food and is broken at dusk with jaggery kheer and roti, after which the long fast begins. On the third evening the family walks to the river with baskets of thekua and fruit, and the vrati stands in the water to offer arghya to the setting Sun. Before dawn on the fourth they return, and offer it again to the Sun as it rises.
As the living tradition keeps it.
2 / 3Shashthi, the Mother of childrenTurn ↻
Chhathi Maiya is remembered as Shashthi Devi, who watches over children. The Purana tells of King Priyavrata, grieving a child born without breath, and of the goddess who appeared, gave the child life, and asked that she be worshipped on the sixth day.
Brahma Vaivarta Purana, Prakriti Khanda.
3 / 3Karna in the riverTurn ↻
Karna, the son of Surya, is said to have stood in water every morning, praying to his father until the Sun was high, and to have refused no one who asked of him at that hour. The tradition of Anga, his kingdom on the Ganga, holds him among the first to keep this worship.
Karna's worship of Surya: Mahabharata. Its link to Chhath: the living tradition of Anga and Bihar.
The days around it
4 days kept as one season. Each has its own page.
- Day 1
Nahay Khay
A bath in the river, a house made clean, one simple meal.
- Day 2
Kharna
A day without food, broken at dusk with jaggery kheer and roti.
- Chhath
The evening arghya: thanks to the Sun as it sets.
You are here - Day 4
Usha Arghya
Back in the water before dawn; the offering to the rising Sun.
What is said, and what is so
Often said
If the vrata is broken, harm will come to the family.
The root
Chhath is thanks, not a debt. Many families keep it through one vrati while everyone else carries the baskets, cleans the ghat and serves; that service is the vrata too. What is offered in love is never punished.
Often said
Only women can keep Chhath.
The root
Most vratis are women, and men keep it too, standing in the same water with the same soop in their hands. The vrata belongs to whoever takes it up.
How to keep Chhath
Free acts, done by you. Kept so far this year: 0 of 3.
Go to the river, pond or lake nearest you and clean a stretch of its bank before anyone stands there to offer arghya.
At sunset, name one thing that is leaving your life and thank it fully before you turn to what is coming.
Rise before the Sun and sit facing east, still, until its first edge clears the horizon.
Each act is free and done by you. Keeping one writes it to your karma ledger with the day's panchang. Nothing here is ever bought, and no act is a remedy.
The family's part
The youngest
Helps shape the thekua and carries a small basket of fruit to the ghat.
The eldest
Teaches one Chhath song as their own mother sang it.
Everyone
Standing at the water at dusk, each person names one person whose care has kept them.
How India keeps it
Bihar and Jharkhand
The great days of the year. Neighbours sweep and light the roads to the ghats together, and the banks of the Ganga at Patna fill with families before sunset.
Eastern Uttar Pradesh
Kept along the Ganga, the Ghaghara and village ponds, with the same songs and the same four days.
The Nepal Terai
Across Mithila and the Madhesh, Janakpur among them, Chhath is kept as the region's own great festival, with ponds and rivers lined with lamps.
Families far from home
In Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, and among Bhojpuri families abroad, any river, lake or tank becomes the ghat, and strangers from the same villages stand in the water together.
The day, for San Francisco
The day is chosen by the moment the tradition reads its tithi at, and the times are that day's own, computed for this city. A festival-specific puja window is not printed: those rules differ by tradition and await a scholar's review.
For another city
The stories, their sources and the regional customs on this page await a scholar's review. The sky and the dates are computed for your city.