Chitragupta Puja and the Worship of the Pen

Chitragupta Puja falls on the second day after Diwali, in the same cluster of observances as Bhai Dooj, and its distinguishing feature is that the objects honoured are not images alone but the tools of the scribe's trade: account books, ledgers, pens and ink are cleaned, arranged before the deity and worshipped directly, and in some communities no new entry is made in the account books until the puja has been performed. This fits a wider and much older Hindu pattern of honouring the instruments of one's livelihood rather than only its patron deity, seen also in Ayudha Puja's worship of tools and weapons and in Vishwakarma Puja's worship of machinery among artisans and industrial workers.

Temples built specifically to Chitragupta are few, since he is worshipped chiefly within Kayastha households and community halls rather than through a widespread public temple network, but where they exist they function as much as sites of caste identity and professional blessing as of devotional worship in the ordinary sense. The practice has extended naturally into modern professional life: many Kayastha families and offices now include ledgers, computers or other record keeping equipment in the annual puja alongside traditional pen and paper, treating the observance as addressed to the act of accurate record keeping itself rather than to any one fixed set of tools.