Chhath Puja 2025: Date, Timings, Rituals, and Spiritual Significance

Chhath Puja is one of the most rigorous festivals of the Hindu calendar, offered to Surya and to Chhathi Maiya. It is kept with particular intensity across Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and parts of Nepal, and by diaspora families wherever a clean water-body or a carefully prepared courtyard can stand in for the ghat. The festival is less a spectacle than a discipline: purity of kitchen and body, a nirjala fast, and arghya to the setting and rising sun.

The observance falls in the bright fortnight of Kartik, a few days after Deepavali. Its four principal stages — Nahay Khay, Kharna, Sandhya Arghya and Usha Arghya — move the devotee from a purifying bath and sattvic meal, through an evening offering at dusk, to the final morning offering at dawn. Water, the soop of fruits and thekua, earthen diyas and the Surya mantras form the outer frame; silence, restraint and gratitude form the inner one.

This guide sets out the dates and sequence for Chhath Puja 2025, the classical background of the vrata, the day-by-day method, the mantras customarily used at the arghya, and the practical do’s and don’ts that keep the rite within tradition.

Chhath Puja 2025 date and calendar

In 2025 the main public stages of Chhath fall across late October. The sequence below follows the conventional order of the four rites. Sunrise and sunset shift by city, so confirm the exact local window on the daily panchang for your place before you step into the water for arghya. The wider Kartik festival list is also on the festival calendar.

Tradition treats Sandhya Arghya and Usha Arghya as the heart of the festival: the same devotee who stood in the water at dusk returns before first light to complete the vow.

History and classical background

Sun-worship is among the oldest strands of Vedic practice. The Rigveda praises Surya as the giver of life, the dispeller of darkness and the witness of human conduct. Offering water to the sun while standing in a river is described in later smriti and puranic passages as a simple, severe form of upasana open to householders.

Several well-known narratives are linked with the Chhath vrata. Karna, son of Surya and Kunti, is remembered for daily Surya-arghya offered while standing waist-deep in the river; many families in the Gangetic plain still name him as the model of the rite. In the Mahabharata cycle, Draupadi is said to have kept a form of this vrata during the Pandavas’ exile, seeking steadiness through a period of hardship. Chhathi Maiya — often identified with Usha, and spoken of as sister to Surya — is invoked for the protection of children and the well-being of the household; the name “Chhath” itself points to the sixth lunar day that anchors the festival.

Taken together, the tradition presents Chhath less as a temple festival and more as a household and riverside vow: gratitude to the sun for sustenance, and a public demonstration of purity and self-control.

Spiritual significance of the vrata

The spiritual weight of Chhath lies in its alignment with the elements the householder meets every day — sun, water, earth and air — and in the severity of the discipline it asks. The devotee prepares food without onion, garlic or non-vegetarian items, keeps the kitchen and the ghat clean, stands in water at the two twilights, and for roughly thirty-six hours takes neither food nor water. Tradition holds this combination of outer purity and inner restraint as the proper offering to Surya and Chhathi Maiya.

Dawn and dusk are chosen because they are the sandhya junctions long marked in Vedic timing as fit for japa and tarpana. Standing in water, holding the soop, and reciting the Surya mantras give the body a single, undistracted task; the mind is asked to match that simplicity. Family members who are not fasting still keep a sattvic kitchen and help at the ghat, so the vow becomes a shared household observance rather than a private ordeal.

Where a birth chart shows a strained or poorly placed Surya, classical remedial practice often turns to Surya-related patha and homam. The Aditya Hridaya Homam is one such rite in the house’s catalogue, performed by named priests and telecast live; it sits within the wider set of planetary homas offered for graha shanti. Tradition prescribes these supports; it does not guarantee any worldly result.

Rituals day by day

Nahay Khay

The vrata opens with a purifying bath, ideally in a river or clean pond, taken early. The kitchen is washed; only sattvic food is cooked, traditionally in brass or copper vessels with pure ghee. Onion, garlic and non-vegetarian items are set aside for the whole period. The first meal after the bath is taken as prasad of the day, marking the household’s entry into the vow.

Kharna

On Kharna the devotee fasts through the day. After sunset a simple prasad — commonly gur-kheer made of jaggery, milk and rice, with fruit — is offered and then taken. From this point the nirjala fast begins: no food and no water until after Usha Arghya the next morning. Those who cannot sustain a full nirjala vrat for health reasons keep a lighter discipline under family guidance; the spirit of restraint remains.

Sandhya Arghya

At the ghat or a clean water-body, the devotee stands in shallow water with a bamboo soop or basket holding thekua, sugarcane, coconut, banana, lemon, diyas and other seasonal fruits. Arghya is offered to the setting sun, often with the Surya mantras and the regional Chhath geet. Silence around the offering is customary. The same arrangement of prasad is kept ready for the morning.

Usha Arghya and parana

Before dawn the household returns to the water. Arghya is offered to the rising sun; prayers are made for the family’s welfare. Only after this offering is the fast broken, and the prasad distributed among family and neighbours. Leftover biodegradable offerings are cleared so that the water-body is not left fouled.

Usual offerings

Thekua (wheat and jaggery), seasonal fruits, sugarcane, coconut, earthen diyas, milk, honey, rice, and the bamboo soop or basket. Plastic is avoided; clay, bamboo and natural fibre keep the rite in line with its emphasis on simplicity.

Mantras used at the arghya

Short Surya mantras are recited while the water is offered. They are used as remembrance of the deity, not as a substitute for the physical discipline of the vrata. For pronunciation and basic method, see the house guide on how to chant a mantra.

A simple arghya formula also in common use is: Om Suryaya Namah, Om Adityaya Namah, Om Bhaskaraya Namah. Some households add verses from the Aditya Hridaya patha when a learned reader is present. The mantras are spoken softly at the water’s edge; the surrounding crowd is expected to keep noise down for the duration of the offering.

Do’s and don’ts during Chhath

Do’s. Bathe and wear clean, preferably light-coloured cotton clothes each day of the vow. Cook prasad in a purified kitchen with ghee and sattvic ingredients; salt and heavy spice are traditionally kept out of the main offerings. Use bamboo baskets, clay lamps and natural fibre — not plastic — at the ghat. Keep silence during Sandhya and Usha Arghya. Involve the household so that children see the discipline, not only the crowd. Clear the ghat after the rite. Check local sunrise and sunset rather than a generic city time.

Don’ts. Do not use metal or plastic vessels for the arghya water or the soop. Do not take non-vegetarian food, alcohol or tobacco from Nahay Khay through the final parana. Do not break the nirjala fast before Usha Arghya is complete. Do not handle prasad with unwashed hands or eat it before the morning offering. Do not pollute the river or pond with packaging or leftover waste. Do not disturb a fasting devotee with food, water or loud conversation. Dark synthetic clothing and angry or careless speech are set aside for the period of the vow.

Questions devotees ask