Chat Pooja and Skand Shasti

I was going through website of Swami Nityananda. There was one video clip in which one USA priest explaining about Skand Shashti. There were many things which were not known to me about Kartikeya. Two of them I should mention here. First, there were the names which I did not understand i.e. Sarvan( because he was born in the forest of reeds), Karthikeya (Lady Krithika associated with Nakshatra Krithika or just because it was month of Karthik). Then about the story of his birth. First time I read about birth of Karthika was from Kumar Sambhavam, a glorified composition of Kalidasa. Like his another composition Abhijnana Sakuntalam, there is lot of poetic imagination involved in that story. Since, it has very high literary value it became very popular among westerners. Most of the present day Bhaarateeya have habit of learning their history from westerners. It was natural for westerners to rely more on the imagination of an poet, which was more suited for their mission to portrait History of Bharat in perverted manner, than on the more revered Puranic sources. I would like to mention the difference some where else. I should not forget the main thought process which initiated this piece. It struck me when he told that Skand Shashti is celebrated six days after Diwali. Six days after Diwali were the key words. I remembered this was the count for Chat Puja. So I got interested in that story. After that I thought of knowing little more about the Chat Pooja. There is an impressive Wikipedia link for chat festival.
I would not like to repeat them again here as they can be followed by clicking the link. What I came to me was reaffirmation about culture Bharat.I would like to share few of them here.
1. There is similar theme going around in different form. It becomes Chat pooja in North and Skand Shashti in south. Both are associated with Sun. Chat is directly worship of The Sun and Karthikeya, the presiding deity of the Skanda Shashti has Yantra with solar base, which can be noticed in another video in the same site in another video clip in the same site.
2. Every action has different aspects associated to it. First and most apparent is cultural aspect. In this case Chat Puja carries with itself and identification of Bihari people. Skand Shasthi will be associated with Tamil people. Then is ritualistic aspect, which is preserved by the adherent devotees even when they don’t understand it. I don’t know anything about the Skand Shasthi directly, but neither do I know much about Chat Puja. That does not stop me from mentioning what I observed. Ladies fast religiously during these days. I have seen that from generation to generation they meticulously carry out smallest detail of the Puja. In any of the festival of Bharat what cannot be forgotten is the social aspect. People share the Prasad (offerings) with relatives and neighbors. So there is exchange of material and feelings. This creates bond and keeps them strong. Then there is philosophical aspect.. This is for the intellectuals to indulge in and newer interpretation keeps coming. Then there is spiritual aspect, which interlinks all of them together.


This reminds me of one of the teacher who had impressed me during school days, Mr Padmanabhan at JNV Adilabad. We used to discuss a lot. Mind it, I was just in class tenth at that time. And our topic used to be very serious, sometimes philosophical religious. But he initiated in some sort of healthy discussion and discussion. I also improved my English due to him to some extent. Once I asked him how he developed good command over English. (Remember that at time somebody speaking in fluent English was a matter of achievement for us. No need to ask who was that us. Us were the students, who had migrated from JNV Darbhanga). He told that because he had command over his mother language, (which was Tamil). That left me thinking that to have command over any other language one must have command over his or her own mother language. This learning helps in learning everything else properly. I think I will have to write a little about him also else where. Before I digress from my present topic, I saw similarity in what I learnt at that time about language and now about these festivals, Chat and Skand Shasti. I feel that if one understands ones own culture properly one can better understand other culture and even see connections and similarities between them, specially in context of Bharat.