Satyanarayan Katha and Puja Vidhi

Satyanarayan means Narayana who is Truth. In the katha, Vishnu himself tells Narada that this vrat is the simplest way in the Kali Yuga to find relief from sorrow and fulfilment of good wishes, that it can be performed on any day, by anyone, and needs little time or money. The heart of the vrat is faith (shraddha), truthfulness in keeping one's word, and respect for the prasad.

It is among the most widely performed home pujas in India, especially in Maharashtra, Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, and among the diaspora. Families hold it on full-moon days, at a house-warming, before or after a wedding, on a birthday or anniversary, or in thanksgiving when a wish has been fulfilled.

A small wooden stool (chowki) covered with a cloth, often with banana stems or leaves tied at the four corners as a mandap; an image or picture of Satyanarayan, or a shaligram; a kalash with water, mango leaves and a coconut; Ganesha (often a betel nut placed on rice); navagraha and other deities as your tradition prescribes.

Puja items: roli, haldi, chandan, akshata, flowers, tulsi leaves (essential for Vishnu), mauli, incense, ghee lamp, camphor, betel leaves and nuts, panchamrit (milk, curd, ghee, honey and sugar, often with tulsi), fruit, especially bananas, and dakshina.

Prasad: the katha itself names banana, ghee, milk, sugar or jaggery and wheat flour, in sava (one and a quarter) measure. In Maharashtra and the South this is made as sheera (sooji halwa with banana); in North India as panjiri of roasted wheat flour and sugar, often with charanamrit; in Bengal as shinni, a mixture of flour, milk, sugar and banana.

The order below is a common one; your family priest may follow a fuller form.

1. Bathe, wear clean clothes and, if observing the vrat, fast or eat lightly through the day. 2. Clean the place, draw a rangoli or alpana, set up the chowki and the banana-stem mandap. 3. Light the lamp, perform achamana and take the sankalpa with your name, gotra and purpose. 4. Worship Ganesha, then the kalash (Varuna), and the navagrahas and other deities if your tradition includes them. 5. Worship Satyanarayan with the shodashopachara or panchopachara offerings, bathing the shaligram or image with panchamrit and offering tulsi leaves. 6. Read or listen to the five chapters of the katha with the family seated together. Many families offer flowers or akshata at the end of each chapter. 7. Perform aarti, usually 'Om Jai Lakshmi Ramana', and offer pushpanjali. 8. Distribute charanamrit and prasad to everyone present. It is considered important that every listener receives the prasad. 9. Feed Brahmins, relatives and guests as you are able, and, according to the katha, spend the evening in kirtan and remembrance of the Lord.

The popular Hindi and Marathi texts of the katha are divided into five adhyayas, narrated by Suta to the sages at Naimisharanya. Names of places and characters vary slightly between editions.

Two lessons run through all five chapters. The first is that a vow made to God must be kept: the merchant suffers each time he delays or mocks, and is restored when he repents. The second is reverence for prasad, however humble its giver: Kalavati's haste and Tungadhvaja's pride both bring sorrow, and humility brings everything back. Devotees also see in the katha that the vrat is open to all: a poor Brahmin, a woodcutter, a merchant, a king and simple cowherds all perform it.

Scholars note that the katha appears only in some printed editions of the Reva Khanda, notably the Bengali Vangavasi edition, and not in others such as the Venkateshvara edition, and some regard it as a relatively late composition. Several historians link its spread in Bengal with the worship of Satya Pir, honoured by both Hindus and Muslims, and date its Sanskritised form to around the seventeenth or early eighteenth century. Elsewhere in India, Satyanarayan is worshipped simply as a form of Vishnu.

The katha also exists in versions associated with the Bhavishya Purana and in Bengali, Odia, Marathi, Telugu and other languages, and in some Bengali versions the characters differ. These differences do not affect the devotion with which millions of families perform the puja.