Bhaiya Dooj 1961

From the Skanda Purana

Yama, the lord of death, is the son of the Sun. His sister is Yamuna, the holy river. The day of Bhaiya Dooj is also called Yama Dvitiya, "Yama's second day", because of what happened between this brother and sister.

Yamuna loved her brother dearly. Again and again she went to him and said, "Brother, come to my house for a meal, and bring your attendants with you." Every time Yama gave the same answer: "Today, or tomorrow, or the day after." The Purana says simply that a mind busy with duty has no free time.

At last, on the second day of the bright half of Kartika, Yamuna asked him so earnestly that he could not refuse. Before he left, Yama set free all the souls held in the hells. Then, with his attendants, he went to his sister's house.

Yamuna welcomed him with great love. She rubbed his body with oil and sweet scented pastes and bathed him. She gave him ornaments, fine clothes, sandal paste and garlands, and seated him on a couch. With a happy heart she cooked many kinds of sweet rice in golden vessels and fed him herself.

When the meal was over, Yama honoured his sister in return with ornaments and clothes. Then he said, "Beautiful one, choose a boon."

Yamuna did not ask anything for herself alone. She said, "Come to my house for a meal every year. On this day let all sinners be set free from hell. And let every brother who eats from his sister's hands on this day be happy. This is the only boon I choose."

Yama granted it and added a blessing of his own: whoever bathes in the Yamuna on this day, offers water to the ancestors and the gods, eats at his sister's house and honours her, will never see the gate of Yama's city. Having said this, Yama returned to his capital, Samyamini.

The Purana says that on this day, long ago, the souls in hell were freed and celebrated. It warns that a man who eats in his own house on this day instead of at his sister's loses the merit of the whole year. It promises that a sister who feeds her brother and offers him betel leaves on this day will never be widowed, and that her brother's life will not be cut short. If a man has no sister of his own, the Purana lets a cousin sister, an aunt, or any lady he honours as a sister take her place.

The Padma Purana tells the same in a few words: on this day Yama was fed and honoured by Yamuna in her house with a sister's love, and so the day is famous in the three worlds as Yama Dvitiya. Those who eat from a sister's hand and give her gifts gain wealth and long life, and have no quarrels and no fear of enemies through the year.

Another story

This is the katha traditionally told by families who keep Bhaiya Dooj; the sources that tell it do not name a scripture. Yamuna often invited her brother Yama to her home, and he kept putting it off because of his duties. On Kartika Shukla Dvitiya he finally came. Overjoyed, Yamuna welcomed him, put a tilak on his forehead and served him a meal she had made herself. Pleased, Yama offered her a boon. In this telling the boon is that a brother who visits his sister on this day, receives her tilak and eats her food will not meet an untimely death. This is why sisters put a tilak on their brothers on Bhaiya Dooj.