Sakat Chauth 1921

From the Ganesha Purana

Indra told this story to King Shurasena.

King Kritavirya was strong, truthful and generous, and his queen Sugandha was devoted and good. Yet they had no son. They gave gifts, kept vows, went to holy places, and still no child came. At last, in sorrow, the king handed his kingdom to his ministers, and the couple went to the forest to live as ascetics, eating little but dry leaves and air.

The sage Narada saw this and told the king's late father in the world of the ancestors. The father hurried to Lord Brahma and asked why his good son had no child.

Brahma said, "In a past life your son was a cruel man named Sama, who lived in that same city. Once, greedy for money, he killed twelve peaceful Brahmins on the road and left them in a cave. He came home that night with their wealth. It was the Chaturthi of the dark half of Magha (Purnimanta; Pausha in Amanta), and the moon was rising. He had eaten nothing and drunk nothing all day. He called his son, 'Ganesha! Ganesha!' and ate with him. Without knowing it, he had kept the Sankashti Chaturthi vow. When he died, that merit took him to Ganesha's world, and what was left of it made him your son, Kritavirya. If he now keeps the Sankashti vow, his old sin will be destroyed and a son will be born."

Then the father appeared to Kritavirya in a dream, embraced him, and placed in his hand a book that described the vow, telling him to keep it for a full year. When the king woke, the book was in his hand. His learned men read it and said it taught the Chaturthi that destroys all troubles, with the worship of Ganesha at moonrise. With the sage Atri as his guru, the king took Ganesha's mantra and kept the vow.

By Ganesha's grace the queen bore a son, but the child had no arms and no legs. The whole city wept. The king named him Kartavirya.

Twelve years later the sage Dattatreya came and saw the child. He told the king that during the night vigil of the Sankashti vow he had yawned and had not sipped water to purify himself, and so the king of vows had been slighted. Dattatreya gave the boy Ganesha's mantra and said that after twelve years of worship Ganesha would show Himself.

The boy asked to be taken to the forest. There he chanted the mantra, living on air, still as a stone, for twelve years. Then Ganesha rose from the middle of a lake in a form of red coral. The boy asked only for steady devotion, and, for his parents' sake, a whole body. Ganesha entered him, and at once he stood with a divine body and a thousand arms. He became the mighty Sahasrarjuna.

Another story

This is the katha traditionally told by families who keep this vrata.

A potter could not get his pots to bake; his kiln failed again and again. A priest said the trouble would end only if a child were given to the kiln, and on Sakat Chauth a mother's son was placed in it. The mother prayed all night (to Sakat Mata in some tellings, to Ganesha in others). In the morning the pots were fully baked, and the child was found alive and unharmed. Since then mothers keep this fast for their children.