Rishi Panchami 2125

The traditional katha

This is the katha traditionally told by those who keep this vrata; no Purana source was found for it.

The day is named for the Rishis, the seven great sages, who are honoured on this Panchami.

Long ago, in the land of Vidarbha, there lived a good Brahmin named Uttanka with his devoted wife Sushila. They had two children, a son and a daughter.

When the daughter grew up, her parents married her into a good family. But not long after the wedding her husband died, and the young woman was left a widow. She accepted her fate quietly and came back to live with her parents. Uttanka built a small home on the bank of a river, and the family lived there.

One day the parents saw that something was badly wrong with their daughter. The tellings differ about exactly what they saw: in some, insects covered her body while she slept; in others, worms appeared. The parents were frightened and wanted to know why this had happened.

Then they learned the reason. In some tellings the parents called learned Brahmins, who found the cause through their rites; in others Uttanka saw it himself. Either way, the answer was the same. The cause lay not in this life but in the one before it. In her previous birth, the daughter had not kept the rules of purity during her monthly days. She had gone about the kitchen and touched the household vessels at that time, and she had never kept the Rishi Panchami vrata to clear that fault. The fault had followed her into this life.

The parents were told the remedy: their daughter should keep the vrata of Rishi Panchami, which frees a woman from such a fault. They were also told how the worship should be done, and they helped her keep it.

The daughter kept the vrata faithfully. By its power she was freed from the fault of her earlier life.