In Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, Bhopal exhibition Chhath Lok is on display in the indoor exhibition building – Veethi Sankul. The festival of folk is because this is connected to our rhythm, our culture, our folk songs, our references and our civilisation. Therefore it has become our identity. Change in festival is a process of social and conscious. This brings mobility in our societies. The festivals are no longer the priority of culture, Rather they become the cause of change.
Chhath Puja is an important Hindu festival that is mainly celebrated in Bihar and other many regions of India. The puja is dedicated to the worship of the Sun god and his wife Usha. Chhath Puja is so called as it is celebrated on the sixth day of the month of Karthika in the Vikram Samvat. People celebrate the festival by following a rigorous routine that lasts four days. The rituals include: fasting (including abstinence from drinking water), holy bathing, offering prayers to the rising and setting sun, and meditating by standing in water.
The four-day festival starts four days after Diwali. This is how the devotees observe the festival. The first day of Chhath Puja (Nahay Khay), devotees take a dip, preferably in the river and carry home the holy water to prepare the offerings. The second day the devotees observe a fast for the whole day, which ends in the evening a little after sunset. After worshipping the Sun and the Moon, they prepare offerings of kheer, bananas and rice for their family. After consuming the offering, they fast for 36 hours without water.
After preparing the prasad, the devotees take a dip in the holy water body in the evening and worship the Sun god and Chhathi maiya. They offer the evening offerings amid folk songs.
The fourth day, devotees go to the holy waters and offer morning offerings or ‘Usha arghya’ to the sun, following which they break their fast. In the presented exhibition, all the rituals items related to Chhath rituals has been combined on the according to traditional Madhubani painting of the Mithila region.
