The katha of King Priyavrat
Long ago a king named Priyavrat and his queen Malini had no children. Maharishi Kashyap performed the Putreshti yagya for them and gave the queen kheer from the yagya to eat.
The queen bore a son, but he was stillborn. The grieving king took his son to the cremation ground and, in sorrow, began to give up his own life. Just then a divine goddess appeared from the sky.
The goddess said, 'I am Devsena, the mind-born daughter of Brahma. Because I was born from the sixth part of the primal nature of creation, I am called Shashthi Devi. Worship me and have others worship me too.' At the goddess's touch the child came alive.
The king worshipped the goddess on Shashthi tithi and spread the puja throughout the kingdom. Since then Chhathi Maiya has been worshipped for the protection of children and the well-being of the family.
Other stories of Surya worship
According to one belief, after the victory over Lanka, Mata Sita and Shri Rama returned to Ayodhya and worshipped Surya Dev on Kartik Shukla Shashthi. In the Mahabharata, Surya's son Karna stood in water for hours every day offering arghya to the sun, and Draupadi too kept the Chhath vrat to end the Pandavas' hardships.
In Chhath, arghya is offered to both the setting and the rising sun. It teaches that every stage of life deserves respect.
This is OmKiran Bhakti's retelling of the traditional katha in simple English; details of the katha vary slightly from region to region.
