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Next: 13 to 16 Nov 2026

Chhath Puja

The four-day sun worship of Bihar, with thekua, fried in ghee and perfumed with fennel and cardamom, as the key offering.

Devotees of the Festival Chhath Parva in Janakpur, Nepal
Photo: Steffen Gauger, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Spices for Chhath Puja

Chhath is an old festival for the Sun god, kept on the banks of rivers and ponds in Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh. The central offering is thekua, a hard sweet cookie of wheat flour, jaggery, ghee and dried coconut, deep-fried and flavoured with fennel seed and green cardamom. The meal that ends the first fast, kaddu bhat, uses bottle gourd, chana dal and rock salt, with only cumin and a pinch of turmeric. Cooking is done by the family with strict cleanliness, usually over a mud stove, and no onion or garlic is used.

The spices

FennelGives thekua its sweet anise note.CardamomScents the offering sweets.CuminLight seasoning of the sacred meal.
About this page

Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Chhath" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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