The Ancient Manuscript of Suryarghyavidhānam – A Complete Guide to Sun Worship Rituals

Imagine this: my first Chhath Puja at Juhu Beach, camera in hand, brimming with visions of the perfect shot. I’d pictured everything in cinematic detail—the vibrant saris shimmering against the dawn, the coconut offerings carefully arranged, each moment framed perfectly. But as I stood there, struggling to keep the sand out of my lens and the crowd out of my frame, I found myself asking, “What’s the story behind all of this? Where does this devotion come from?”

A few days before, I’d come across a description of an ancient manuscript called Suryarghyavidhānam that The Asiatic Society in Kolkata had posted. It’s a small document, handwritten on just two folios of handmade paper, cataloged under the government collection. The manuscript isn’t some grand text filled with legends or stories. It’s simply a guide—a ritual manual for offering arghya, a water oblation, to the Sun. Written in Sansk

rit, in Devanagari script, it captures the essence of devotion stripped down to its simplest form: direct, pure, and enduring. The manuscript struck me as something quietly powerful, a relic of the past that has somehow persisted through generations.

As I watched the women on the beach, their movements echoed the simplicity that Suryarghyavidhānam seemed to embody. These women, many of them older, were carrying baskets filled with fruits, flowers, sugarcane, and coconuts—offerings symbolizing life, fertility, and prosperity.

In this ritual, as in the oldest faiths, the act itself holds meaning. Chhath Puja speaks through the women—particularly the matriarchs of Bihar and Nepal—who fast, wait, and weave devotion into each offering they prepare. Fruits, flowers, sugarcane, coconuts—all elements hinting at life, fertility, and prosperity, gathered in baskets and offered with steady hands and unwavering hearts. This is no place for priests; this is a ritual of the people, anchored in the lives of women who have carried their families, generations, and stories on their backs, independent of doctrines or intermediaries. In a way, it was like Suryarghyavidhānam had come to life around me, the timeless instructions of devotion playing out in the present.

The women on the beach stood waist-deep in the waves, their faces turned to the Sun as if to say thank you, as if acknowledging the life it gives. They had fasted, stayed awake, and now, at dawn, they offered these simple gifts to the rising light. Chhath Puja, I realized, doesn’t need a story. Its beauty lies in its action, its resilience, and the quiet strength of those who continue it year after year.

I tried, again and again, to frame this essence in a single shot, but it kept eluding me. The scene was too raw, too alive to be neatly captured. Aunti jis wandered into my shot, unbothered by my artistic crisis, while children darted in and out of the water, breaking my focus. But as frustrating as it was, I couldn’t help but feel that the spirit of Suryarghyavidhānam was in these very imperfections, these small, human interruptions. Chhath Puja wasn’t meant to be frozen in time; it was a living ritual, carried by real people, marked by their lives and their unique rhythms.

When I left the beach, I had none of the photos I’d imagined, but I carried something else—an understanding of why this ritual, and by extension, this ancient manuscript, had endured. Suryarghyavidhānam might seem like a simple instruction manual, but it holds within it the same resilience and strength that I’d just witnessed on the beach. It survives because it speaks to something beyond words or myths. It’s about connection, endurance, and the strength to keep going, to keep honoring the Sun as generations before us have done.

Note to self: next time, waterproof gear. But maybe there’s a beauty in not capturing everything perfectly—letting some moments live on in memory, a little messy, a little chaotic, like the enduring spirit of Chhath Puja and the wisdom of Suryarghyavidhānam.