Charak Puja · Gajan Festival The last day of Choitro, when the gajan of Shiva, a month of vows kept by the bhaktas or sanyasis of the village, comes to an end.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Charak Puja · Gajan
- हिन्दी
- चड़क पूजा · गाजन
- বাংলা
- চড়ক পূজা · গাজন
Only the names actually in use are listed. A blank script is not an omission: the day may simply not be kept there, or be kept under a different festival's name.
UTC+5:30
The date of a festival depends on the place: a tithi that ends at dusk in Chennai can still be running at dusk a thousand kilometres west, which moves the day. Sunrise and sunset here are computed for the place above.
When it falls next
Looking for the calendar this day belongs to
This day does not fall again in the next three years at this place. A few days are tied to the solar month rather than to the civil year, so a year can hold two of them or none.
What the day is
The last day of Choitro, when the gajan of Shiva, a month of vows kept by the bhaktas or sanyasis of the village, comes to an end. They fast, wear red, pierce the tongue and the back and walk on fire and on thorn, and at the charak a man is swung round the top of a tall pole on a rope; the practice has been regulated since the nineteenth century and most places now swing a harness or a weight. It belongs to the oldest layer of Bengali village religion, folk Shaiva rather than brahminical, and the Dharmathakur gajan of the Rarh country is kept in the same weeks.
- Deity
- Shiva, Dharmathakur
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
The hour
The rule in words
The Chaitra Sankranti, the last day of the Bengali year; the gajan songs run through the night before and the charak in the afternoon.
The fast
The bhaktas keep one meal a day through the gajan month, without fish or meat, and sleep on the ground. The village eats the charak prasad of fruit, molasses and parched rice after it.
Where the regions differ
Rural West Bengal, Bangladesh and the Bengali districts of Assam and Tripura keep it; the Bangladeshi calendar ends Choitro on 13 April, so the charak there can fall a day earlier. Traditions vary a great deal from village to village on what the bhaktas undertake.
Every date here is computed from the Sun and Moon for the place entered, by the rule printed beside it. A printed panchangam can differ by a day where an almanac reads a tithi at a different instant, and a family's own custom always comes first. Where the practice genuinely varies, the text says so rather than choosing for you.