Ask a priest which moment of the Puja matters most and many will say Sandhi Puja. It is short, its time is fixed to the minute by the almanac, and in many pujas the whole neighbourhood turns up for it, even if that means three in the morning.
The joining of two days
Sandhi means a joining. The days of the Puja follow tithis, lunar days, rather than the calendar, and a tithi can begin and end at any hour. Sandhi Puja is held across the boundary between the eighth tithi and the ninth: the last twenty-four minutes of Ashtami and the first twenty-four minutes of Nabami. So it can fall in the afternoon one year and before dawn the next.
Different almanacs calculate the tithis slightly differently, which is why two pujas in the same street can hold Sandhi Puja at different times. Our panjika page gives this year’s times by both of the systems Bengal uses, Bisuddhasiddhanta and Surya Siddhanta.
The goddess as Chamunda
In the Chandi, two demon generals, Chanda and Munda, march against the goddess. From her furious brow springs Kali, dark and terrible, who kills them both, and the goddess names her Chamunda for the deed. Sandhi Puja is the worship of the goddess in this form, and it is said to mark the moment of that victory.
108 lamps and 108 lotuses
The rite calls for 108 lamps and 108 lotuses. The lamps, lit one after another until the whole stage glows, are what most people carry home in their memory. The lotuses recall a story from the Krittivasi Ramayan, the Bengali retelling of the epic. Before his battle with Ravana, Rama worships the goddess out of season and offers her 108 blue lotuses, but one is missing: the goddess has hidden it to test him. Rama, whose eyes are said to be like lotuses, takes up an arrow to offer one of his own eyes instead, and the goddess stops him and blesses him.
Animal sacrifice was once part of Sandhi Puja in many places, and a few still keep it. Most pujas today make a symbolic offering instead, such as an ash gourd, sugarcane or a cucumber.
Being there
Sandhi Puja is when the dhak plays hardest and the crowd presses closest. Check the exact time on the panjika, arrive well before it, and be ready to stand. In the big community pujas it can be hard to see the stage, so many people choose a smaller puja, or a bonedi bari, where the rite is close enough to watch.