Book Satyanarayana Pooja

About this puja

Satyanarayana puja worships Vishnu as Truth itself. Its story is in the Reva Khanda of the Skanda Purana, where Vishnu tells Narada it is the simplest way for people of this age to be free of sorrow. No long fast or big homa is needed: devotion, the sapata sheera prasada and the five chapters of the katha, heard with family and friends, are the whole of it.

When families do it

• On Hunnime, Ekadashi or Sankranti, usually in the evening
• After a gruhapravesha, a wedding (often the couple's first puja together) or a baby's birth
• To say thank you when a wish comes true, or to keep a vow (harake)
• On birthdays, anniversaries, a new job or business, or after recovering from illness

The prasada

Sapata sheera: rava, ghee, sugar and milk in equal measures of one and a quarter, with banana and cardamom. Everyone present should take some — the story itself warns against leaving it.

The katha, in short

1. Narada asks Vishnu how people can be freed of their troubles, and is taught this vrata. 2. A poor Brahmin of Kashi and a woodcutter keep it and their want ends. 3. The merchant Sadhu promises the vrata for a child, gets a daughter, Kalavati, and keeps putting it off — until he and his son-in-law are jailed far from home. His wife and daughter keep the vrata, and the men are freed. 4. Sadhu lies to a holy man that his boat holds only leaves, and leaves it becomes until he asks pardon. Kalavati runs to meet her husband without taking the prasada and his boat sinks, until she goes back and takes it. 5. King Tungadhwaja ignores the prasada offered by cowherds and loses everything, until he comes back and takes it humbly.

What it teaches

Keep the promises you make, never look down on a prasada or on any devotee, and remember God in good times as well as bad.

What the pandit does

• Ganapati puja and sankalpa
• Navagraha and kalasha puja
• Satyanarayana puja with the sixteen offerings
• The five chapters of the katha
• Aarati and prasada for everyone