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Tirtha

festivals

Satyanarayan Katha

श्री सत्यनारायण व्रत कथाŚrī Satyanārāyaṇa Vrata KathāThe vrat of Vishnu as Satyanarayan, told in five chapters

A household vrat kept most often on Purnima or a sankranti, in which the sankalp is taken first and the katha is then read aloud in five chapters before the family.

From
₹2,100
Duration
1 hr 15 min – 4 hr
Languages
en · hi · bn · mr · gu · ta · te · kn
Performed as
At Your Home · At a Temple in India · Guided by Video
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Why this ritual

What the rite is for

The Satyanarayan vrat is the most widely kept household rite in India, and the reason is its plainness. It needs no fire, no long muhurat calculation and no special line of descent. A clean room, a chowki, a plantain mandap and a pandit who can read the katha well are enough.

The order matters. The sankalp is taken before the katha, not after — the family states the tithi, the place, the gotra, the names of those present and the occasion, whether a wedding anniversary, a new job, a recovery, a return home or a vow made months earlier. Only then is the katha read. The five adhyayas are read in sequence with the family seated, and the pandit pauses at the end of each for the shloka the household repeats.

The story itself is about keeping a promise. Each chapter follows someone who vows to keep the vrat and then, in the press of ordinary life, forgets — the poor Brahmin, the woodcutter, Sadhu the merchant with his daughter Kalavati, and King Tungadhwaja who walks past the prasad without touching it. The chapters are not warnings. They are about attention, and about the fact that the prasad is meant to be received, not stepped around.

Textual basis

Where it comes from

The katha comes from the Reva Khanda of the Skanda Purana, where Narada asks Vishnu what a householder burdened by ordinary difficulty may keep, and is given this vrat. The five adhyayas as recited today were fixed by the vernacular pothi tradition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which is why the Hindi, Bengali, Marathi and Telugu versions differ in phrasing while agreeing on the sequence of events. The usual day is Purnima, and Kartik, Vaishakh, Shravan and Magh Purnima are the most kept. Sankranti, Ekadashi and the first day in a new house are also common. Bengali households call the prasad sinni and prepare it from atta, banana, sugar and milk; western India uses sooji, and the measure everywhere is sava — one and a quarter of whatever unit the house is using. The katha is read in the language the family listens in, not in Sanskrit alone.

Vidhi

The rite, step by step

Timings are approximate and vary with the pandit's paddhati.

Samagri

What the vidhi calls for

And why each item is used.

  • Satyanarayan image or murti

    1 piece

  • Plantain stems and leaves

    4 piece

    Four stems make the mandap and the leaves serve as the plate for the naivedya. The plantain is the tree named for this vrat in the pothi.

  • Panchamrit with tulsi

    500 ml

  • Tulsi leaves

    21 piece

    Picked in the morning, never after dark, and never with the nails. They are placed on the naivedya and in the charnamrit.

  • Sooji for the sinni

    1250 g

    A sava measure — one and a quarter — is used for every part of the prasad. Bengali households use wheat flour in place of sooji.

  • Ghee and sugar, sava measure

    1250 g

  • Bananas

    5 piece

  • Gangajal

    250 ml

    Included in the kit

  • Yellow cloth for the chowki

    2 metre

    Yellow is the colour kept for Vishnu in this vrat, from the chowki cloth to the flowers.

  • Sandal paste and akshat

    100 g

  • Dhoop, deep and camphor

    1 bundle

  • Katha pothi in your language

    1 piece

    Sent in Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu or English so the family can follow the chapters as they are read.

Packages

What differs between tiers

Stated plainly: the counts, the number of pandits, and the time it takes.

  • Katha Essential

    Sankalp, puja and all five adhyayas.

    ₹2,100

    Duration
    1 hr 15 min
    Pandits
    1 pandit

    Included

    • Sankalp in your name and gotra
    • Ganesh pujan and kalash sthapana
    • All five adhyayas read aloud
    • Aarti and prasad
    • Katha pothi in your reading language

    Not included

    • Navagraha pujan and brahman bhojan

    guided · in india

  • Katha Traditional

    Most chosen

    The full household sequence with the plantain mandap.

    ₹5,100

    Duration
    2 hr 30 min
    Pandits
    1 pandit

    Included

    • Everything in Essential
    • Plantain mandap raised at your home
    • Punyahavachan and navagraha pujan
    • Sinni prepared in the sava measure
    • Samagri brought and arranged
    • Photographs shared the same day

    at home · in india

  • Katha with Havan

    Two pandits, a havan after the katha, and bhojan for the guests.

    ₹11,000

    Duration
    4 hr
    Pandits
    2 pandits

    Included

    • Everything in Traditional
    • Havan with 108 ahutis after the katha
    • Vishnu Sahasranama path
    • Purnahuti and vasordhara
    • Brahman bhojan arranged for five

    at home

Who performs it

Pandit requirement

One pandit who reads the katha in your household language and can perform the punyahavachan. The Katha with Havan package adds a second pandit for the fire and the Sahasranama.

Questions

What families ask

Choose a muhurat

We will show you the auspicious windows for this rite, in your timezone and in India’s, and why each one was suggested.

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Traditional guidance, offered for reflection. Not medical, legal or financial advice.