Ahoi Ashtami :: A Time to celebrate Motherhood
Ahoi Ashtami is a festival celebrated in most of the parts of Northern India where the married women keep fast for their children. Ahoi Ashtami is celebrated in Karthik month according to Hindu calendar. This festival comes exactly eight days before Diwali festival which is celebrated throughout India. The mother keeps fast from early morning to late evening till the moon and stars are visible in the sky. During the day the mother cannot have water or any kind of food. In the time between afternoon and evening the mother recites a Katha (traditional holy story) to her children. A pot of water is kept nearby while the Katha is recited. After the stars are visible in the sky at night the mother completes the fast by offering the water to the stars from the very pot which was kept during the Katha. Some families have the tradition of completing the fast by offering water to the moon. The water which is left over in pot is drunk by the mother as sacred water. The children are given new clothes, sweets of their likes. The food which is prepared in the house that day also has to be according to the likeness of children. There are a few points to be kept in consideration while observing the fast ritually:-
1)The mother should not cut any fruits or vegetables with knife during the fast.
2)The mother should not do any kind of sewing with the needle.
3)The mother should not scold the children during the fast.
4)The children should not be forced to do any kind of work on this day. They are free to do anything they like.
The Katha which is recited by the mother is as follows:-
[Image Source:- Mobile phone/Self]
There were three families living in a locality. The first family had seven children, second family had only one child and that was a boy while the third family had no child. The woman who had only one child and the woman with no child envied the woman who had seven children, so both the women decided to go to a saint who was capable of granting any boon. The saint gave both of them a task—in order to win the task they had to clip all the hair of any child they come across and bring them to the saint. The first one to complete the task would win the boon. The woman with only one child spotted a boy with good hair, as she tried to clip his hair, he started crying. As she was familiar with the pain of her own child, she also started crying and went empty handed. Contrary to this, the woman who had no child clipped all of the hair of a boy as she was unaware of the pain she was causing to him. Both of them went to the saint and gave their respective point of view. But the saint was impressed with the feelings of the woman with one child as she was aware of the motherly love. So he awarded the mother who had only one child with a boon that she will have seven sons for seven births continuously.
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