The Rishi Panchami vrat katha in most books is the story of the Brahmin Uttanka and his widowed daughter, who fell gravely ill and was healed after keeping this vrat in honour of the seven rishis. A second story tells of Sumitra and his wife Jayashri, released from a lower birth by their son's devotion. Both are told below as the vrat books tell them, followed by a plain note on how families read them today.
The day is the Panchami of the bright half of Bhadrapada, the day after Ganesh Chaturthi; the date for your city is on the Rishi Panchami date page, and the day's tithi is in the panchang. This page is only the stories, told in our own words.
The story of Uttanka and his daughter
In the land of Vidarbha there lived a learned Brahmin named Uttanka, with his wife Sushila. They had a son, who grew up to be a scholar, and a daughter, whom they married into a good family. Not long after the wedding the daughter's husband died, and she came back to live in her father's house.
She was gentle and helpful, and the household loved her. One night, as she slept, her body broke out in painful sores. Her mother found her in the morning in great distress and ran to Uttanka.
Uttanka sat in meditation to understand what had happened. The vrat books say that he saw his daughter's earlier life. In that life, they say, she had been a Brahmin woman who did not keep the separation rules that households of that time followed during a woman's monthly period: she had moved about the kitchen and touched the vessels of the household as on any other day. The sores, the story says, were the result of that.
Sushila asked what could be done. Uttanka told her of a vrat on the bright Panchami of Bhadrapada, kept in honour of the seven rishis and Arundhati. On that day one bathes with apamarga twigs, eats only what has grown without the plough, worships the Saptarishi, and hears their story.
The daughter kept the vrat with care. She bathed in the river, set out seven heaps of rice for the seven sages and an eighth for Arundhati, offered flowers and sandal, and ate only a little wild grain at the end of the day. Her sores healed, and in the story she lived the rest of her life in peace, and in the next life was born into happiness.
The story of Sumitra and Jayashri
Some books tell a different story, or tell it as a second one. A Brahmin named Sumitra lived with his wife Jayashri, who worked in the fields, and their son Sumati, a learned young man. In the course of time Sumitra and Jayashri died. The books say that because Jayashri had not kept the rules of her period, she was reborn as a dog in her son's own house, and Sumitra, for his own lapses, was reborn as the ox that ploughed his son's field.
On the day of his father's shraddha, Sumati's wife cooked kheer for the Brahmins. A snake slipped into the pot unseen. The dog saw it and, to save the guests, put her mouth into the kheer so that it would be thrown away. Sumati's wife, not understanding, beat the dog and gave her nothing to eat. That night the dog went to the ox and told him what had happened, and the ox told her of his own hard day in the field.
Sumati understood the language of animals, and he heard them. In the morning he went to a sage, who told him that if he kept the Rishi Panchami vrat and gave its merit to his parents, they would be released. Sumati kept the vrat, and both the dog and the ox were freed from that birth.
Reading the story calmly
These stories belong to the time in which the vrat books were written, and they carry that time's beliefs about women's bodies. They are told here because they are what is read at the puja, not because they are true about anyone. Menstruation is a natural, healthy process of the body. It is not impurity, it is not a sin, and no illness or rebirth comes from it. Many families now leave these parts of the katha out or tell them only as history, and keep Rishi Panchami for its older and larger meaning: a day of gratitude to the Saptarishi, the seers of the Vedas and the founders of the gotras, and to the teachers, elders and sages in one's own life. Both the sons and daughters of a family can keep it in that spirit.
What survives well in both stories is the image of a family trying to look after its own: a father who sits quietly to understand his daughter's suffering, and a son who listens closely enough to hear his parents in the voices of animals.
Other tellings
- Brahma and King Sitashva. Some books open with a frame in which a king named Sitashva asks Brahma for a vrat that clears the faults of past lives, and Brahma answers with Rishi Panchami and the story of Uttanka.
- A day for all. In parts of Maharashtra and Nepal the day is kept without any of these stories, simply as the worship of the Saptarishi.
How the katha is heard
The puja is usually done around midday, after the apamarga bath. Women sit together before the seven small heaps of rice or betel nuts that stand for the rishis, and an elder reads the katha from the vrat book or tells it from memory. In many homes now the reader stops after the story to say, in her own words, that the old rules about the body are not part of the family's faith. The order of the puja is on the Rishi Panchami puja vidhi page.
What the story carries today
The rishis lived in forests, ate what the earth gave without ploughing, and taught what they had seen. Rishi Panchami asks for a day of that simplicity, and for thanks to anyone who has taught us. It comes in the same few days as Hartalika Teej and Ganesh Chaturthi, at the busiest time of the festive calendar. If you plan the puja around a good window, see the choghadiya for your city.