The Jitiya Fast
Volume 3 | Issue 7 [November 2023]

Priti Saxena

Volume 3 | Issue 7 [November 2023]

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Madua ke roti banawali nenua ke sagia, jitiya mahi he
hamre ghar pahiya bhojanwa, jitiya mai he
hamre ghar pahiya bhojanwa, jitiya mai he

I have made flatbread of ragi for mother Jitiya
Please come to our house for food, Mother Jitiya
Please bless our house with your presence, Goddess Jitiya

In Hinduism, fasts fall into three categories that overlap – phalahar, a fruit-based diet, nirahari, without food and sometimes even water, or alpahari, eating prescribed food with an intermittent fasting period; I have tried all three but it is the feasts that follow them, that keeps me more interested.

Before marriage, I fasted on Thursdays and Navratri because my mother kept them and encouraged me to do the same. Except for supplication to the almighty to bless our lives, rituals did not burden my fasting at this stage. Yet they did establish a threshold for my endurance, which fell far below the level required to sustain fasting in eastern India. My marriage in Bihar – I was born in Delhi and came from a different community – made me look at their fasts from the perspective of an outsider. It tempered my dissent and gradually grew into an acceptance of fast as another element of culture. As I travelled to India’s east, the rituals became intricate, the fasts were tougher, and women seemed to have more endurance. I began to appreciate these fasts for the food that followed and the songs.

One such festival with an elaborate spread of culturally significant food is Jitiya. The three-day festival, celebrated in eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand, begins with nahay khaye and ends with paran or ‘breaking the fast,’ while the day in between is nirjala or complete fasting without water. The interesting part are the foods consumed on the first and third days. Though I had been keeping the Jitiya fast after the birth of my first child, the non-availability of most of these foods made my experience partial. Our relocation to Patna as per official transfer made my jitiya fast more complete as I navigated the festive streets for jitiya threads worn by women and children, special foods, and other things needed for the day.

Why Jitiya? The desire for a male child is ritually manifested in the jitiya vrat that falls in the pitr paksha, when Hindus pay homage to their ancestors, and through specific food cooked and desired by mothers who wished for a long and healthy life for their children. 

Soon after the birth of my daughter, my mother-in-law suggested that I keep the Jitiya fast for the long and healthy life of the child. I learned later that only women who have given birth to male children keep them, so my mother-in-law was upending the prevalent custom. Nowadays, many women in Bihar observe fasts despite having only daughters, while others continue to abstain in the same situation. The zeal of the people in my place of posting, and the availability of things needed for the rituals, influenced my jitiya fervour, too.

In Chandigarh, my Nepali cook kept this fast and also celebrated the ‘Teej’ fast. These overlapping rituals of Nepalese Hindu and Eastern India stretch back to some 2000 years. The story of the Jitiya vrat katha retells the self-sacrifice of Jimutvahan, a Buddhist prince who, offers himself as a sacrifice to Garuda, the king of birds and a natural enemy of serpents, or the Naga people. His sacrifice moved Garuda to resurrect every man killed by him and grant the boon of long life to the progeny of all mothers who fast on the ashtami of Ashwin month in Hindu calender.

Jimutvahan figures as a central character in Kathasaritsagar, written in the 10th-11th century, and is mentioned in Nagananda, attributed to King HarshaVardhana in the 7th century besides the Vrihatkatha, dated the 2nd century AD. These references attest to a very ancient lineage to the Jitiya fast. In Nagananda, Jimuthvahan is a practising Buddhist where Gauri, the Hindu goddess, revives the dead nagas; however, in the present story no trace of Buddhism remains. Another story connects the Jitiya fast with the Mahabharata and the Pandavas. In this version, Krishna’s boon rescued Abhimanyu’s wife, Uttara, and the foetus after Ashwatthama had harmed them. This child later became the wise ruler Parikshit.

The Jitiya fast begins with Nahay khaye when mothers bathe before eating the specially prepared food. The mother prepares the prescribed foods in ghee with sendha namak but without onion or garlic. Though mandatory foods include noni ka saag, madua ki roti and satputia with the main meal of chana dal with lauki or bottle gourd with fine-grained rice, my dishes have often shrunk to dal chawal with jhingi. The same food is eaten at night, but perhaps with madua ki roti or madua ka halwa. Before the 24-hour nirjala fast, women get up early, around 4 am, to eat sargai or sehri. Sehri, the pre-dawn meal, is a Persian term and connotes the meal eaten just before dawn; its association with a Hindu fast, gives credence to the idea of porous cultural boundaries.

We eat no specific food on Sehri. I prefer dates soaked in milk while others might prefer a full-course meal. The main function of the pre-dawn Sehri is to help women to sustain the 24-hour fast without water and to perform their household and religious duties with devotion. On the second day, towards evening, the altar is prepared in which the figures of chilh and siyar (eagle and fox) made from clay are kept beside the figure of Jimuthvahan, made from Kusha grass. After offering flowers and fruits to the idols, reading the katha or story of jitiya with aarti completes the evening puja.

While many women follow the difficult injunction of not having any water, others have started to take nimbu paani (lemon water with sugar but without salt) or tea after the puja is over. I have wavered, and except for a few occasions of not taking anything, the sweet and deeply fulfilling nimbu paani has quenched my thirst and filled my belly. The fast has made me revere food and water that I might never have truly appreciated otherwise.

In Bihar, the Ganga River acts as a fault line, dividing the northern region of Mithila from the south, where Bhojpuri is spoken. The Jitiya rituals also reflect this divide. In the Mithila region or ‘Ganga-par’ region, kusi kairav and tiny fish, are especially revered and the latter is either cooked or swallowed directly to ensure the birth of a son.

One cannot overlook the fact that the chana dal with lauki and arwa rice combination is considered auspicious in this region because it is made during festivals and on special occasions in the family. Presumably, the abundant production or fecundity of chana made it worthy enough to give company to arwa rice, which again is pure enough to be an offering to the deity. The other primary source of carbohydrates is Madua or ragi or finger millet, a nutritious healthy cereal that can survive extreme heat and drought. The high protein content and presence of many minerals make this a superfood that is said to balance hormones in young mothers. But for Jitiya, madua is chosen because, unlike wheat and rice, being hardy makes it less susceptible to pest attacks like weevils. By making ragi rotis or halwa and eating them, mothers hope to transfer the quality of endurance to their progeny. A similar reason is seen behind the choice of other vegetables and foods in this fast, some of which I have mentioned in the following paragraphs.

Noni ka saag is a common creeper, seen in potted plants or by the side of the road. It spreads quickly and flourishes in all types of conditions. The quality of proliferation without any aid is what mothers wish for their offspring. Cleaning the small entangled leaves of noni is quite a tedious process, but when eaten as bachka or saag, it is delicious.

Then there is turai, which with its two close cousins have become my favourite. While ridge gourd or jhingni was available elsewhere, satputia became part of my shopping bag only in Patna. Satputia belongs to the family of turai, but unlike it, comes in bunches, and hence the name seven sons or satputia. Earlier, offspring died in infancy or early adulthood since childcare and maternal care were non-existent, so the only safety was in numbers. Eating satputia would have conferred seven strong sons to mothers, fulfilling her motherly desires and increasing their standing in the family. From the nutrition angle, the high-water content and plenty of cellulose in these vegetables would have helped the fasting women to stay hydrated and ward off constipation after the prolonged fast.

Poi ka saag or malabar spinach is a much-loved green in many parts of India and is often part of satvik offerings to deities. A robust and hardy climber with its heat-tolerant nature and other nourishing properties makes it part of the Jitiya food list. One can make saag from the leaves or eat it as the much-loved bachkas, the latter being fried poi leaves dipped in besan and rice flour batter. The crispy poi adds crunch to the dal-chawal main course.

Though I have no connection to Mithila, I wanted to taste kusi kairav. These rounded beads, dark brown in colour, are soaked overnight, and consumed as pakoras or as a stew with all spices. The seeds’ resistance to pests is a desirable quality, and the high protein content, much like the small gram or kala chana, that kept the belly full would be the reason for their inclusion in the fast.

After a 24-hour fast without water, and this duration can go further as per the beginning of the Navami tithi according to the Hindu calendar, the women break their fast by swallowing five seeds of soaked black gram and five seeds of cucumber or five seeds of kusi kairav. After the puja, mothers put the jitiya thread around the necks of their children before they end their fast. Before partaking in the solid food specially prepared for the day, an offering in the leaf of nenua is placed in an open area for ancestors and birds. These food items may vary across households and regions. The offerings for the birds, revered as visiting ancestors, make jitiya an important ritual, which invokes the blessings of forefathers for future generations.

The thali filled with different tastes, textures and colours is another instance of preserving certain foods through the sacred path. The tartness of the sizzling kadhi with sweetness of chawal along with Bachka of Poi ka patta, noni ka sag and jhingi ki sabzi as side dishes gives one a lot of time to chew over their presence in our lives. A full stomach gives way to a satisfied soul – manifested both in ancestors, visiting as birds, and human participants.

Glossary

1. Madua- Finger millet
2. Jitiya- a fast widespread in parts of India like eastern UP, Bihar, and Nepalese Hindu population. They keep it for the long life of children.
3. Maithili- a dialect of Hindi spoken in the Mithila region of Bihar. It is mythologically associated with Sita, the wife of Ram in The Hindu Epic, Ramayana.
4. Satvik- Food has three categories – the rajasic, the tamsic and the satvik depending on the way they influence a person’s mind, constitution, and behaviour. The satvik food is vegetarian, local and induces calmness in individuals.
5. Phalahar- A diet solely based on fruits
6. Nirahar- to abstain completely from eating food
7. Alpahari- One who eats little and only to sustain oneself
8. Nahaye-khaye- it is a ritual where a person takes a bath early in the morning and then consumes any food after offering it to the deities.
9. Paran – To break the fast by eating ritually ordained food.
10. Nirjala- fasting without food and water
11. Shradh- a ceremony performed during a specific month in the Hindu calendar when ancestors are worshipped and offered food. No auspicious activities are performed during this food like marriage or buying new things.
12. Pitrpaksh- Pitr means dead ancestors and it is the month when ancestors are remembered.
13. Sendha namak- Rock salt, which is considered pure
14. Noni ka Saag- wild purslane (Portulaca oleracea)
15. Satputia- A type of gourd which comes in bunches
16. Chana dal- Gram lentil
17. Lauki- Bottle gourd
18. Arva chawal- Rice that is not parboiled
19. Kusi kairav- A lentil resembling Whole Moong beans
20. Shudh- Pure
21. Bachka- Fritter
22. Jhingni- Ridge Gourd
23. Poi ka saag- Malabar spinach
24.  Besan – Gram powder
25. Kala Chana- Black Grams
26. Navmi tithi- The 9th day of any month in the Hindu calendar
27. Nenua- Sponge Gourd