When you head towards Maharashtra during the months of August or September you can hear the chats Ganpati papa mouria often and yes as many of us know that maharashtrians will celebrate Ganesh chaturthi in a sumptuous way. We will see why they celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi in such fashion later in some other post. Now we will see the Modak which will be offered to Lord Ganesha during most of the chaturthis and especially Ganesha Chaturthi. Modak is an Indian sweet which will be offered to Lord Ganesh. The sweet has an outer layer and some fillers. The outer layer made out of Rice flour and the inner fillings made out of chenna dhal and jaggery. Actually there are many flavours in the fillers.
1. Mix of steamed and smashed chenna dhal along with Jaggery.
2. Mix of coconut with Jaggery.
3. Mix of seasame powder with Jaggery.
4. Mix of smashed urad dhal with salt and chilli.
5. Mix of powdered groundnut, seasame seeds, coconut along with Jaggery.
There are some other versions of Modak especially in Tamil Nadu. It is known as pudi-kozhakattai which is made out of Jaggery and Rice flour. Other versions like fried Modak and Mawa Modak also popular.
Modak is the word derived from Marati as a base and it is also called as Modaka in Kannada and Modhagam or Kozhukattai in Tamil. Modak considered to be a favorite sweet for Lord Ganesha. During Ganesh chaturthi people used to offer 21 or 101 modakas to Lord Ganesh. The Hindu mythology states that Anusya the wife of Athri maharishi invited Lord Shiva's family (Siva, Parvati, Ganesh) to visit her house and bless them. Many people served Lord Ganesha with varities of food and after devouring the food but they were unable to sate his hunger. Finally Anusya thought of serving Ganesha with sweet and she prepared modakas and served Lord Ganpati. That finally satisfied Lord Ganesha and thus Modak became a favorite sweet for Ganpati. Rockfort temple in Trichy (ucchi pillayar temple) use to prepare mega size Modak and offer it to Lord Ganesha.
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