Four days long chhath puja concludes today

DAINIK NATION BUREAU

Four days long chhath festival concludes with the prayer of rising sun today at various ghats of  Dehradun and across the state. The festival had begun with Nahay khay, the day when devotees eats rice, pulse and vegetable gourd (kaddu). This is first festival, in which devotee offers prayer to setting sun, which means respect to elders first, then rising sun, respect to young too.

The devotees observe 36 hours long fast while all their family members were involved in the puja in one way or the other. The devotees were seen heading towards the ghats while carrying bamboo baskets since 3 am on Friday. The ghats were illuminated with candle and earthen lamps.

The devotees started taking dip in the rivers, canals and artificial ponds since 5 am and stood in the waist deep water for around an hour while offering Ganga jal and milk to the rising sun.

People offered ganga jal while devotees were doing parikarma by holding bamboo basket full of eatables and fruits. Thereafter devotees exchanged greetings by applying vermilion on one another and  distributed ‘Prasadas’ include ‘thekua’ and fruits among the people present at the ghats before leaving the ghats. There is a belief that if you

They ended their fast with prasads they reached home.  The devotees had on Thursday evening performed the ‘Sandhya Arghya’ (evening offering) to the setting sun in a large number across the State.

Talking to the dainiknation.com Bihari Mahasabha, which had volunteer cleaning of ghats in and around tapkeshwar temple, secreetary Chandan Jhas said that we have been organizing chhata puja for long. We make sure that devotee should not face inconvenience during their prayer which is why our volunteer do lots of cleaning work there. Even they levelled the surface below the water so that devotees can stand up properly.

As per the belief devotees offer everything especially seasonal fruits including turmeric, sugarcane, chakotara, orange, singhara (water chestnut) and perinnial fruits banana & coconuts to the sun god.

In Dehrdun purva sanskritic manch had volunteered at Premnagar, Chandrabani, Raipur, Maldevta canal, Rispana, Deepnagar, Rishikesh and Chuna Bhatta.