Chitragupta Puja 2020: Date, puja timing, ritual and significance - All you need to know

Image Courtesy: Facebook/@UttarPradeshKayasthaSamaj

New Delhi: Today, on November 16, people are celebrating Bhai Dooj and also Chitragupta Puja in some parts of India. Both the festivals are observed two days after Diwali and hold great significance. 

Lord Chitragupta is believed to be the god who keeps a detailed track of each human being's doing. He has an account of who does what and then serves justice upon the person's death. Chitragupta Maharaj is the prime deity of the Kayastha caste. He is Lord Brahma's one of the many sons and because he is born from his body or kaya, the Lord declared that his children would be called Kayasthas. In Garud Purana, Chitragupta is hailed as the first one to have used letters.

Yam dwitiya puja muhurat:

November 16 - 1.10 pm to 3.18 pm

Dwitiya tithi begins at 7.06 am and ends on November 17  at 03:56 am

(According to drikpanchang.com)

Ritual:

During the Chitragupta Puja, stationery items such as paper, pen, ink are worshipped. For the rituals, honey, betel nut, mustard, ginger, jaggery, sugar, sandalwood are used. In every Kayastha household, all the members of the family write down a mantra, their earnings and expenditure on a white sheet. The paper is then offered before Lord Chitragupta.

Vermillion, turmeric and fresh flowers are also offered to the lord as part of the puja. A mixture of jaggery and ginger is then distributed as prasad.

Here is the Chitragupta Mantra which devotees write on paper and offer to the god:

Masibhajan sanyuktacharsi twam mahitale. Lekhi katni hasta chitragupta namostute.

Here's another Mantra dedicated to the lord:

Chitragupta namastubhyam vedaksaradatre

Legend:

The legend associated with the festival is that after Lord Brahma went into meditation for 11,000 years, once he opened his eyes, he found that a man holding pen and ink-pot in his hand. He had a sword on his waist. The Lord then said that because you are born out of my Kaya, you shall be the progeny of Kayasthas clan and you were conceived in my mind (Chitra) and in secrecy (Gupt) so you shall be called Chitragupta.

There are temples in Jharkhand, Bihar, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Nepal dedicated to Lord Chitragupta.