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Happy Chaurchan to everyone in Mithila, and to everyone who carries Mithila with them wherever they live. Chaurchan is observed for peace of mind, health, and the long life and prosperity of one’s children. Tonight, on Bhadra Shukla Chaturthi, when most of India keeps its eyes carefully away from the Moon, entire Mithila will look straight at it, with both hands full of fruit. The festival falls on the fourth tithi of the bright fortnight of Bhadra, the same tithi observed elsewhere as Ganesh Chaturthi. Men and women observing the festival fast from sunrise to sunset. The preparation, as my mother taught it, is given below. 1. On a clean spot, a low seat is shaped from dough and covered with a clean banana leaf. 2. On the leaf goes kheer made from arwa rice. Ten puris stuffed with chana dal are placed over the kheer. 3. Beside it, two round bases of dough hold two pots of curd, freshly set in new earthen vessels. 4. Two bamboo baskets or brass plates are arranged with five plain puris each, curd, ears of corn, whatever fruit is available, flowers, a betel leaf and areca nut. A kalash crowned with mango leaves stands beside them. 5. Facing the direction from which the Moon will rise, an image of the Moon is drawn. Arghya is offered there to Chandra Dev, while the filled basket is lifted in both hands and raised towards the sky. Then every member of the family, fruit in hand, looks up at the Moon. Tradition holds that seeing the Moon on this night with empty hands brings the very dosha that the festival exists to dispel. Few outside the region know this festival, and fewer still know the story of how it began. Here is the story behind the festival. Hemangad Thakur of the Mithila royal house came to the throne in 1571 and was known across the land as a master of Jyotiṣa. When a long-standing royal tax owed to Akbar’s court fell due and Mithila could not pay it in time, the king was summoned to Delhi and imprisoned. In his cell, he kept wroting ceaselessly on the walls. The puzzled jailers eventually gave him paper and ink. He wrote day and night, barely eating or drinking, until the prison staff concluded that he had lost his mind. Word reached Akbar, who came in person to see him. "What are you doing?" "Calculating, Your Majesty. A book of eclipses for the next thousand years." Akbar decided to test him. If he was truly an astrologer, let him name the date of the next eclipse. Thakur gave the date at once. Akbar set the wager. If the eclipse came on that day, seven years of arrears, amounting to seven lakh rupees, would be forgiven. If it did not, the debt would be doubled. Thakur turned to his family deity and vowed that, if his calculation proved correct, he would institute a worship in Mithila such as had never been seen before. On the appointed day, the eclipse came exactly as he had foretold. Akbar kept his word, wrote off the debt, and set him free. Back in Mithila, Hemangad Thakur gathered the finest Brahmins of the land. The assembly resolved that Chaturthi Chandra would be worshipped every year on Bhadra Shukla Chaturthi. That vow has been kept ever since. The book that won his freedom, the Grahanmala, also called the Rahupraagpanji, contained eclipse calculations extending a thousand years into the future, computed by hand in a Delhi prison. The book is out of print today. The vow it won is renewed under every Chaturthi moon. May tonight’s Moon bring you the blessings that only Mithila knows how to ask for. Jai Dvārikādhīśa