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Home > Other Astrological Information > Events / Festivals > Sankatahara Chaturdasi falls on February 2, 2010
Sankatahara Chaturdasi festival also coincides with Ganesh Chaturdi of Maghamasam Krishna Paksha. Lord Ganesh is worshiped individually in exclusive manner by faithfuls one from woes and troubles and also fulfills the wishes of the devotees. On this day, mothers and sons keep fast without even taking water and open it with consumption of some fruits only. They offer poori and delicacies to the Sakat Mata, a deity and hear the story. On this day sesame seeds are roasted and poured with jaggery. The lump is shaped into the figure of a goat and after performing its puja, a boy of the family cuts off its head with a knife as a symbolic act of sacrifice.
According to texts, in a village there used to live a potter. One day he put in the raw pots and fired up his furnace to bake them. But the pots later came out unbaked. He wondered why his furnace was not doing its work? The potter complained to the king. The king consulted his priest and astrologers and the priest revealed that each time the furnace was fired up it required the sacrifice of a child to make it work. The potter had been commissioned on that work by the royal court. So, the king issued an order to the people to offer their child for the sacrifice in turns. Once on the Sakat day, it was the turn of the only son of an old woman. The women said, the did as his mother had told him to do. Meanwhile, the old woman sat in front of the idol of Sakat Mata and prayed after due worship. Earlier, it took days for the furnace to bake the pots but this time it was done in a single day. Out came baked up clay pots. The boy also crawled out unharmed as if coming out of realized the glory of Sakat Mata. Miraculously, the other sacrificed boys also crawled out of the furnace hole one by one to the joy of all parents and families.
2010: January 3, 2010
February 2, 2010