Chhath Puja in Nepal: The 4-Day Sun-Worship Festival — Nahay Khay, Kharna and Arghya

Chhath Puja (छठ पूजा), also called Chhath Parva, Surya Shashthi or Dala Chhath, is an ancient Hindu festival of thanksgiving to Surya, the Sun god — the source of energy and the life-force that sustains agriculture — and to Chhathi Maiya, the goddess invoked for the health, prosperity and long life of one's family and especially one's children. It is native to eastern India and the southern plains of Nepal, and is regarded by its devotees as a mahaparva, or 'great festival'.

The name Chhath comes from chhath, meaning 'sixth', because the central rites fall on the sixth lunar day (Shashthi) of the bright fortnight of the Nepali month of Kartik. Chhathi Maiya is traditionally linked in Hindu scripture to Usha (the dawn) and to the goddess Shashthi named in the Brahma Vaivarta Purana; some traditions describe her as a sister or consort of Surya. Together, the setting and rising sun and the goddess are thanked for the year's sustenance and asked for continued well-being.

In Nepal, Chhath is the signature festival of the Maithili, Bhojpuri, Magahi and Tharu communities of the Madhesh and the wider Terai, and in recent decades it has spread across the whole country, with large public celebrations now held at ghats in Kathmandu.

Chhath always unfolds over four days in the same fixed sequence. The observance is centred on ritual purity, water and sunlight, and each day has its own name and role.

Day 1, Nahay Khay ('bathe and eat'), begins with a holy dip in a river or pond. The vratis (those who take the vow) clean the home and cook a simple, pure meal — typically rice, chana dal and lauki (bottle gourd) — often eaten on the riverbank. Day 2, Kharna (also called Lohanda), is a day-long fast broken only after sunset with kheer (rice pudding made with jaggery), roti and fruit offered first to the deity; this evening meal marks the start of the strict fast. Day 3, Sandhya Arghya, is the main day: after a full waterless fast the vratis wade into the water at dusk to offer arghya (a libation of water and offerings held up in a bamboo winnow) to the setting sun. Day 4, Usha Arghya (also Bihaniya Arghya or Paran), sees the same offering made at dawn to the rising sun, after which the 36-hour fast is finally broken.

The spiritual heart of Chhath is one of the most demanding fasts in the Hindu calendar: a nirjala vrat, meaning a fast taken entirely without food or even water. After eating the Kharna prasad on the evening of the second day, the vratis begin a continuous fast of roughly 36 hours that lasts through the whole of Sandhya Arghya day and night and ends only after the morning Usha Arghya on the fourth day.

The fast is kept mostly by women — often called parvaitin or vratis — though men also observe it. Devotees sleep on the floor rather than a bed, maintain strict physical and ritual cleanliness, and wear simple, often unstitched clothing during the days of the vow. The discipline is understood as an act of devotion and thanksgiving, and many families keep the vow across generations, with married women observing it for the welfare of their husbands and children.

Because the fast is so rigorous and observed even by pregnant women and elders in some families, communities and local authorities in the Terai and Kathmandu arrange first-aid, drinking water and crowd management at the ghats during the two Arghya days.

Chhath offerings are homemade, seasonal and shared almost identically by rich and poor alike. The defining prasad is thekua (also spelled thekuwa) — a stiff, deep-fried biscuit of wheat flour kneaded with jaggery and ghee, sometimes flavoured with fennel or grated coconut and pressed in carved wooden moulds. Alongside it families prepare kasar, a laddoo of rice flour and jaggery.

The offerings are arranged in a soop (a flat bamboo winnowing tray) and a daura (a bamboo basket carried on the shoulder to the ghat). These are piled with seasonal produce that thrives in the Terai: bananas (whole hands, ideally with the bunch), coconut, sugarcane, sweet limes and lemons, radish, ginger, turmeric root, water chestnut (singhara) and other fruits. Small earthen lamps (diyas) are lit as part of the offering at the water's edge.

The use of bamboo, clay and freshly grown fruit — with no factory-made or leftover food — reflects the festival's emphasis on purity, simplicity and a close connection to the harvest and the land.

Chhath is unusual among major Hindu festivals in that it needs no temple, no idol and no priest. There are no murtis (images of the deity) and no Brahmin officiant reciting mantras; the vratis themselves stand in the water and offer arghya directly to the visible sun. This gives the festival a strongly egalitarian character — it is open to all regardless of gender, caste or economic status, and the offerings are nearly the same for everyone.

The rites take place at a ghat — a bathing step or bank on a river, pond or reservoir. In the days before the festival, families and communities clean and decorate a stretch of the waterfront, sometimes building temporary embankments and platforms. On the two Arghya days the vratis, accompanied by family, wade waist-deep into the cold water at dusk and again before dawn, holding up the laden soop toward the sun while relatives pour milk and water and light lamps.

The direct, unmediated worship of the sun over water — with gratitude rather than petition at its core — is often described as one of the oldest surviving forms of Vedic nature worship still practised on a mass scale.

Chhath is celebrated with the greatest intensity across Nepal's Madhesh Province and the eastern and central Terai, where the Maithili, Bhojpuri and Tharu populations are concentrated. Major centres include Janakpurdham, Birgunj, Biratnagar, Rajbiraj, Lahan and Siraha, where riverbanks and ponds fill with tens of thousands of devotees and folk songs in Maithili, Bhojpuri and Magahi ring out across the ghats.

The Government of Nepal recognises Chhath as a national festival and gazettes a public holiday for its final two days (Sandhya Arghya and Usha Arghya). In recent decades, as Madhesi and Terai families have settled across the country, Chhath has become a visible fixture in the Kathmandu Valley as well: large organised celebrations are held at the Bagmati river ghats near Pashupatinath and Guhyeshwari, at Rani Pokhari and at other ponds, with authorities managing crowds and cleaning the water in advance.

For a very large section of Nepal's southern population, Chhath is the single most important festival of the year — comparable in emotional weight to Dashain and Tihar for the hill communities — and it has become an emblem of Madhesi cultural identity and its growing national recognition.

Chhath is set by the lunar calendar and falls on Kartik Shukla Shashthi — the sixth day of the waxing moon in the month of Kartik — which comes roughly six days after Tihar (Diwali). Because the Bikram Sambat lunar reckoning does not align with the Gregorian year, the exact Western date shifts annually, always landing in late October or November.

In 2025 (2082 BS) Chhath ran from Saturday 25 October to Tuesday 28 October, with Nahay Khay on 25 October, Kharna on 26 October, the main Sandhya Arghya on Monday 27 October (Kartik 10, 2082 BS) and Usha Arghya on 28 October. In 2026 (2083 BS) the festival runs from Friday 13 November to Monday 16 November, corresponding to roughly Kartik 27–30, 2083 BS, with Sandhya Arghya on Sunday 15 November and Usha Arghya on Monday 16 November.

Because dates move each year, always confirm against a current Nepali patro (calendar) close to the festival, as the official holiday dates are announced annually by the Government of Nepal.

Cleanliness is not incidental to Chhath — it is central to it. The insistence on bathing, spotless kitchens, freshly grown offerings and the collective cleaning of ghats gives the festival a strong environmental dimension: communities clear rubbish from riverbanks, restore neglected ponds and keep the water, soil and air around the ghats as pure as possible for the days of worship. Many observers describe Chhath as one of Nepal's most eco-conscious festivals.

The festival is also a powerful expression of community, gender and folk culture. Women lead the rites, extended families gather, and the ghats become stages for a rich repertoire of Chhath geet (folk songs). The late Sharda Sinha, the Bihar-born singer known as the 'Bihar Kokila' and the 'Voice of Chhath', gave many of these songs their enduring popularity across the Bhojpuri and Maithili world, including Nepal's Terai.

For a huge share of Nepal's Terai population, Chhath binds together devotion, family, harvest thanksgiving, cultural identity and care for the natural environment in a single four-day observance — which is why it has grown from a regional festival into one of the most widely recognised celebrations in the country.