Santoshi Mata Puja Vidhi

The Santoshi Mata Puja Vidhi and vrat follows a ritual that should be held only on Fridays. It is considered to be the day on which Santoshi Mata was born.

How to begin Santoshi Mata Puja Vidhi?

• Select an appropriate place to offer your prayers and puja and clean it properly.
• On Friday morning, take a bath and place the deity in the place where you want to do the puja. Decorate the place beautifully with flowers and place a kalash to mark the beginning of this puja.
• Offer your prayers first to Lord Ganesha to be successful in all your endeavours, remove destruction and evil from life, and remove poverty. Thereafter, offer your prayers to mother Riddhi Siddi for wealth and abundance of gold, pearl, silver and other types of gems.
• To follow Santoshi Mata Puja Vidhi, you must also read the entire Santoshi Mata story to the devotees and everyone hearing the story should say together – “Santoshi Mata ki Jai.”
• Before reading out the Santoshi Mata story to everyone, fill water in the chosen kalash that has been placed, and keep a small bowl of channa and jiggery (gur-chhana) on it. At the end of the Mata story, perform Santoshi Mata ki Aarti and sprinkle the holy water from the kalash to every corner of your house.
• If water remains in the kalash, pour it into the Tulsi plant of your house.
• Then, you should distribute Mata Ka Prasad to everyone present in the puja.
• During the entire day, make sure you don’t each or touch anything that is sour, like lemon or curd. This is one rule to be followers strictly if you are doing the Santoshi Mata Puja Vidhi, failing which the benefits of fasting and all your prayers shall go in vain.
• In this way, you have to do the same procedure for a total of 16 Fridays.

Udyapan – Process to Complete the Santoshi Mata Puja Vidhi

After successfully completing the fast for 16 Fridays, you are required to perform the Udyapan, which involves the process of offering food to eight children. Udyapan is also called the closing ceremony of the Santoshi Mata Puja Vidhi. On the day of Udyapan, you have to read the Mata story and also perform Aarti, as it was done during the puja, and finally distribute the holy Prasad. Bear in mind that you cannot use any sour item at home and you cannot serve anything sour to children. You can call children from your own family or from the neighbourhood too. You can give them cloths and fruits as Dakshina, but do not offer them money or anything sour.