Chauth Chandra and Koshi floods

Chauth Chandra and Koshi floods

Mentally I was wandering since morning to wrote something on Chauth Chandra/ Chaur Chand, a common festival in Mithila while Ganesh Chaturthi is being celebrated in western and southern India(last evening a Kannadiga said me that for translation work of Kannad stories to Maithili be left for Ganesh Chaturthi and I remember even Telugus here in this colony at Ranchi were celebrating it which I had once attended).
And when after listening to a lecture on insights in modern vaccines I opened e-mail, I found B K Karna from Hyderabad who is a deep thinkr and systematic worker asking ,

“Today, we are celebrating CHAUTHI CHAAND.
Ganesh Chaturthi is being celebrated in all over India.

I want to know
1) How many Ganesh temples are in Mithila?
2) Any historical or oldest temple of Ganesha
3) Vighna haarta Ganesh is not popular in Mithila. Why? Mithila is facing series of problem. Can this be linked?
4) Relation between Chauthi Chaan and Ganesh Puja.
I replied him :
Chaurchand is unique to Mithila where we celebrate it for festivity
Ugahi Chan ki lapkahi pua since our childhood, everyone whose mother is alive will remember it.
Even today we will have it
Ganesh Chaturthi is being celebrated in all over India and yesterday TEEJ as festival in most of the parts of Bihar also-some Maithilanis too have started doing it for the well being of her husband.

You always want to know something in deep of Mithila's culture but let me repeat again that Mithila(or for that matter any part of India's) culture is same as other part of the country with some specifications and distinctions only.
1) How many Ganesh temples are in Mithila?- There are buit not many; at least one I had visited during my cycle yatra in 1994 at Kharka Basant village. Others may add.

2) Any historical or oldest temple of Ganesha- we will have to find..

3) Vighna haarta Ganesh is not popular in Mithila. Why? Mithila is facing series of problem. Can this be linked?- Ganesh is popular even otherwise. Every Puja starts from him. Though Mithila does have a Shaiva-Shakti tradition more we do not have many aspects of Ganesh- maybe Ganeshji requires laddoo but Maithils sweets are khaja and rosgulla.(just a humor!).
I read in the autobiography of Sir Ganganath Jha that he (or someone)had once taken a vow that will perform 10 days Ganesh puja iin Bhadav mas at Darbhanga if some thing might happen..

This year a Maithil Ashwini hailing from Madhepura ,born and brought up at Dhanbad had come to meet me(with one of my long 3 columns statement published in Hindustan in 2003 on Mithila Rajya) with a proposal that he had been organising Ganesh Puja there should be organsed by the AMP there and at many places which will provide fund by lottery but I declined as fund is not only thing that be collected anyway and secondly Mithila is flood ravaged in Bahadav(which became as we see today) when such big function on Marathi scale could not be held.
Maybe this might have been a cause for not having 10 day Ganapati Puja in Mithila rather we celebrate Navratra when weather is congenial.
But remember there is also an idol of Ganesha in Durga Puja(as well as of Laxmi and Sarasawati who usually not live together anywhere except in Mithila and of course we have not left Kartikeya too being mesmerized by beautiful Ganesha)..

In Karnataka I saw during Durga Puja days they have Saraswati Puja and Laxmi Puja..we do it in Basant Panchami and Deepawali and Kojagra! Where is difference in north and south /Arya and Dravida?

4) Relation between ChauthiChaan and Ganesh Puja- There is a relation.

Chandrama is very beautiful and he saw Lord Ganesh as inferior probably laughed at him seeing him Lambodar/Gajanan body.

Ganeshji cursed him that he will loose his beautiful body.

Chadrama became kantiheen.

He was advised by some devta to worship Ganesh on his birthday(Ganesh Chaturthi) and he did that. Ganeshji became pleased and said ,'anybody if worship me today will get this..that.. and if see you(moon) will get this ..that.. but if anybody will see you without fruts etc(without puja) will be cursed and have some blames..
That blame Lord Krishna too had and was said to have theft Symantak Mani..serching which he went in deep caves where Jambvaan(from Ram's time) was there and fought with him 21 days when Jamban recognised that He was Ram's incarnation and returned the Mani and offerred his daughter to marry- Jambavati became Krishna's wife(one among important 8 though He had 16000 others from Assam's jail where his rath piolt was the wife Dwarka town bred Sayabhama)..

The mantra we recite seeing the moon is;
Singh Prasen mavadhit Singhau jambabta Hatah
Sukumark Marodu Yah Tamess Syamantakah.."

I may be some wrong and too precise in haste.
When I started Maithili work in 1992 at Ranchi the first function I could motivate was Chaur Chand at Kanke.
While I was at Bangalore, AMP celebrated it where Dhirendra's mother did all puja- and some 8-10 families were there..alas! that AMP group was dismantled due to childish behavior of a few and dissociated with us on the name of sending savings to HQ of AMP.
But in that function many Maithils had came first and saw each other- one was from my Matrik Koilkh Prabhas Thakur who had come with his mother! What enchanting moment was that someone coming to unknown Maithil's house for community festivity of Chaur Chand..I have some photographs of that function..

That group after leaving AMP, did some New year feast ,certainly in such Macualey copy festivities mothers or sisters would nopt have joined- ght be a matter for couples only like many modern parties!
Wherever we are we need to introspect who we are and why we should organise.
Any organisation is for some sanatan values and AMP stands for that where Chaurchand like festivals have meanings more than it looks, Ugahi chan ki lapkahi pua..

Now that I have lost my mother (and a sister who is performing full puja - haath uthenai like Chhati pawani) is also on piligrimage today might be in return from Bhimashankar Pune to Darbhanga.. nor Dhirendra's mother is there at Bangalore where I might have been if not opted for request transfer back to Ranchi..yet my youngest sister said me yesterday at least some khir will be made in house and after that I will go for dwadasa bhoj for a Maithil in the colony(as after shradha bhoj we do not take anything)..
But many more, may be in hundreds or even thousands died in Koshi dai's furry in Mithila how those village can have chaur chand or will have Durga Puja can only be imagined!
I have in my youth had seen a Chistmus in the burrial ground of Andhra's cyclone ravaged areas in 1977 ; had worked in Koshi floods in 1984 and 1987, maybe those memoirs of 1987 enthuse some one as to how such social work can be done though written in Hindi, can send for the interested ones who may read that Installing Krutidev font from the attachment to read that.