Chetri Chandra (, Moon of Chaitra) is a festival that marks the beginning of the Lunar Hindu New Year for

Sindhi Hindus Sindhi Hindus are Sindhis who follow the Hindu religion, whose origins lie in the Sindh region and spread across modern-day India and Pakistani Sindh province. After the Partition of India in 1947, many Sindhi Hindus were among those who f ...

. The date of the festival is based on the lunar cycle of the lunisolar

Hindu calendar The Hindu calendar, Panchanga () or Panjika is one of various lunisolar calendars that are traditionally used in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, with further regional variations for social and Hindu religious purposes. They adopt ...

, falling on the first day of the year, in the Sindhi month of ''Chet'' (

Chaitra Chaitra (Hindi: चैत्र) is a month of the Hindu calendar. In the standard Hindu calendar and India's national civil calendar, Chaitra is the first month of the year. It is the last month in the Bengali calendar, where it is called Ch ...

). It typically falls in late March or early April in the

Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years d ...

on or about the same day as Gudi Padwa in Maharashtra and Ugadi in other parts of the Deccan region of India.

Overview

The festival marks the arrival of spring and harvest, but in the Sindhi community, it also marks the birth of Uderolal in 1007, after they prayed to the Hindu god Varun Dev on the banks of River Indus to save them from the persecution by the tyrannical Muslim ruler Mirkhshah. Varun Dev morphed into a warrior and old man who preached and reprimanded Mirkhshah that Muslims and Hindus deserve the same religious freedoms. He, as Jhulelal, became the champion of the people in Sindh, from both religions. Among his

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...

Muslim followers, Jhulelal is known as "Khwaja Khizir" or "Zindapir". The Hindu Sindhi, according to this legend, celebrate the new year as Uderolal's birthday. The tradition likely started with Daryapanthis. During the British colonial rule era, major annual fairs (''melas'') used to be held in Uderolal and Zindapir (near

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern Indi ...

, Pakistan). In contemporary times, the Sindhi community celebrates the festival of Cheti Chand with major fairs, feast parties, processions with ''jhankis'' (glimpse stage) of Jhulelal (an avatar of arun dev similar to

Vithoba Vithoba, also known as Vi(t)thal(a) and Panduranga, is a Hindu deity predominantly worshipped in the Indian state of Maharashtra and Karnataka. He is generally considered as a manifestation of the god Vishnu, or his avatar Krishna. Vithoba is of ...

), other Hindu deities, and social dancing. On this day, many

Sindhis Sindhis ( sd, سنڌي Perso-Arabic: सिन्धी Devanagari; ) are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group who speak the Sindhi language and are native to the province of Sindh in Pakistan. After the partition of British Indian empire in 1947, man ...

take Baharana Sahib, a representation of Jhulelal, to a nearby river or lake. Baharana Sahib consists of jyot (oil lamp), misiri (crystal sugar), fota (

cardamom Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genera '' Elettaria'' and '' Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. They ar ...

), fal (fruits), and akha. Behind is kalash (water jar) and a nariyal (

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family (Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the f ...

) in it, covered with

cloth Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

, phool (

flowers A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism ...

) and patta (

leaves A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, st ...

). There is also a

Murti In the Hindu tradition, a ''murti'' ( sa, मूर्ति, mūrti, ) is a devotional image such as a statue, or "idol" (a common and non-pejorative term in Indian English), of a deity or saint. In Hindu temples, it is a symbolic icon. T ...

(statue) of Pujya Jhulelal Devta. Cheti Chand is a major festival of Sindhi Hindus in India and Pakistan, and also celebrated by the Hindu Sindhi diaspora around the world.

References

External links

Images of Cheti Chand in Sindhunagar
from Sindhunagar.com * Recipe to make Tairi (an authentic Sindhi delicacy or Sweet Rice made on occasion of Chetichand

from sindhirasoi.com {{authority control Hindu festivals New Year celebrations New Year in India New Year in Pakistan Sindhi culture Hinduism in Sindh March observances April observances Hindu festivals in India Religious festivals in India Religious festivals in Pakistan