The Nil-Sashthi Ceremony
The Fatal Oath
Bijaya learned that her mother had died when she went to
visit her family. She asked her
sister-in-law who her mother had entrusted Sashthi with, and they told her that
her mother had passed Sashthi down to her.
Bijaya questioned her inheritance, and after doing so, her husband,
children, brothers and their children fell to their deaths.
Bijaya left to find the goddess and called upon her for
answers. Bijaya with humility, asked Sashthi to bring her family back. Sashthi told her the pujah that she must
perform. Bijaya performed the pujah and
her family came to life.
The Manthan Sashthi Ceremony
The Sacrificed to Varuna
Varuna came to a Brahman in a dream and told him, in order
to be blessed with water his grandson must be cut into five pieces with his
body part spread over the land. The
Brahman’s son learned if the secret and sacrificed his son for Varuna. Water appeared and a feast was planned.
The mother went looking for her child and called upon
Sashthi. She performed a pujah ceremony and an old woman appeared. She gave her infant child to her, and
rejoiced while returning home to see her husband and father-in-law in shock.
The Joymangalbar Ceremony
Joyabati-The Gift of Joya
Joya in disguise as a hungry Brahman refused the food of a
man by the name of Kanak Sen who was daughterless. The man asked the “Brahman” to bless him with
a daughter. Joya gave the man a drug for
him and his wife to consume. Joya then told the man to name his daughter
Joyabati when she is of marriage age, and marry her off to a boy by the name of
Joydev. Joydev has six
sisters, and he is the only male in his family.
When the two had married, Joydev questioned Joyabati’s
devotion to Chandi. He believed that no
such goddess could do the great things that his wife mentioned. He threw her jewelry into the ocean, severed
their child’s head off of his body, threw their child in fire, and drowned
him. In each occasion their son was
saved, and Joyabati’s jewels were recovered.
The Aranya Sashthi Ceremony
Saved from the Cat
A grandmother who was a Brahman experienced her
grandchildren being taken away by the cat of the goddess Sashthi. Sashthi told the Brahman that her
grandchildren were taken away because her daughter in-law had anointed herself
with oil on the day of her pujah. She will be given another son, but she must
not allow him to anoint himself with oil.
The grandmothers did so, and helped those who she had encountered on her
way meeting Sashthi.
The Pashan Chaturdasi Ceremony
The Wife Who Used to Eat the First Morsel
A Brahmani woman questioned why her grandchildren had all
dies in the cradle where they slept. A
wise man told her, it was because she always ate the first morsels, and that
she has never given the opportunity to her daughter in-law. The woman sent her daughter in-law away and
cleaned their home, and cooked as well.
She came home happy and saw that the day of the Chaturdasi Ceremony she
would be the first to eat. When she did
so, she was blessed with birthing the children that she had lost.
The Guha-Sasthi Ceremony
The Wife Who Cooked Beef
A Brahman wanted his daughter in-law to prepare a feast of
tortoise and curry. She ate all of the
food after what should have been a taste.
The servant of the daughter in-law went outside to a nearby field a
killed a calf. The calf would not cook
right and she believed it to be a forbidden meat. When
it came time to serve the meat the daughter in-law fell and the servant touched
the pot, making the food not edible because she was of lower caste touching the
food. The daughter in-law performed a
pujah and the calf was brought back to life, and the women were forgiven.
The Cawra Cawra Ceremony
The Banished Girls
Amuna and Jamuna were banished from their home by their
stepmother. Lakshmi found them in the
forest and disguised herself as an old woman.
She wedded the sisters. One
sister wedded a prince, and the other a minister. Jamuna continued to praise Lakshmi for all
that she had done and was blessed for it.
On the other hand, Amuna stopped worshiping Lakshmi and suffered
greatly. After much misfortune she began
to worship Lakshmi again.
Bibliography: The Sacred Tales of India by Dwijendra Nath Neogi (1918)
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