India, a nation that values every tradition and welcomes every festival with open arms, celebrates a variety of occasions. One of the most auspicious among them is "Krishna Jayanthi," that marks the birth of Lord Krishna, the ninth incarnation of Lord Vishnu. 

Now, before diving deep into the details of Krishna Jayanthi or Krishna Janmashtami, let's get to know ourselves with some basic aspects of this occasion. 

So, with no delay let's get started!

What is Krishna Jayanthi?

As mentioned earlier, Krishna Jayanthi celebrates the birth of Lord Krishna, is also known as Janmashtami, or Gokulashatami, Srishrishna Jayanti, Sree Jayanthi, Ashtami Rohini. 

As per traditional legends, Krishna Jayanthi is observed in the months of Aavani or Shravana (which falls between Mid-Aug to Mid-Sept) when the nakshatra (star) is Rohini and the 8th day of warning Moon (Krishna Paksha - Ashtami).

This alignment goes along with the exact planetary positions at the time of Krishna's birth during the Dwapara Yuga, approximately 5000 years ago. 

Who celebrates krishna jayanthi?

Krishna Jayanthi, also known as Gokulashtami, holds significant importance, particularly for Madhavas, but it is celebrated by Hindus in common, across the India and various parts of other countries as well.

History of Krishna Jayanthi

Lord Krishna was born in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh to Queen Devaki and King Vasudeva at midnight.  According to Bhagavata Purana, Kansa, the brother of Queen Devaki, received a prophecy that her eighth son would be the one to kill him.

While Kansa was generally a cruel King, he had a great affection towards his sister Devaki. However, upon hearing this prophecy, he decided to take an aggressive step to save himself, he imprisoned both Devaki and her husband Vasudev. After cruelly killing all their seven childrens, Kansa was determined to get rid of the eighth child. 

Now Devaki and Vasudev were too desperate to save their child, so they were praying to God to rescue Krishna. Out of the blue, they received divine assistance, which allowed them to take away Krishna from the prison.

Being aware of Kansa's formidable power and reputation, King Vasudev decided to take Krishna far away to the home of his friend Nanda in Vrindavan. 

Carrying Krishna in a basket over his head, Vasudev crossed the Yamuna river. Upon reaching his friend's place, he exchanged his newborn son Krishna for Nanda's newborn girl baby and returned to the prison, believing that Kansa would spare the girl child, as the prophecy particularly mentioned the eighth son, as the reason behind his death.

However, Kansa was so insecure that he hurled the girl child against a rock. Despite being harmed, the girl child  rose into the air, transforming herself into the Goddess Durga's form and warned Kansa about his impending death.

Kansa attempted to use his power to kill Krishna, but he couldn't succeed. By the time Krishna grew up in Vridavan and killed Kansa at the age of 14 fulfilling the prophecy, saving the town from Kansa's cruelty. 

On this day of Krishna Jayanthi, we memorialize the divinity of Lord Krishna's love, beauty, and warmth.  

Krishna Janmashtami Rituals

It is the day when Krishna devotees are fully devoted towards worshiping the divine - they observe fast wearing their traditional cultural outfit. 

Some devotees observe 'nirjala vrat' where they won't drink even a drop of water until the ritual gets over at midnight with Krishna's birth.

Now, let’s see how these rituals are carried over at different places,

At Home - 

Since, Krishna was born at midnight, the ritual is performed in the evening time after sunset at home.

On Krishna Jayanthi people begin the ritual with cleaning their home and puja graha (home temple), where they clean the existing krishna images and decorate the puja place with a lot of lightning and lamps.

Here, the krishna jayanthi kolam is considered to be the one of the most important parts of the ritual where the people  create the leg stamps of krishna with liquid white rice flour indicating the arrival of krishna into their home.

Later they perform abhishekam (bathing) to Lord Krishna's idols with milk, curd, and butter chanting Lord Krishna's mantras 'Radhe-Radhe' or 'Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare.'

Once done with the bathing ritual they decorate the Krishna's idol with a complete devotion believing Lord Krishna to be their kid — they decorate the idol with new attractive traditional clothes, jewelry, flowers, and offer Krishna with a variety of delicious food, mainly his favorite Butter and Flattened rice.

At Temple - 

In temples, it is somewhat different. 

Here, the celebration begins before dawn and carries over until midnight — Yes, the time when the Lord Krishna was born. 

Throughout the day the temple celebrates the love for Krishna by organizing kirtans — chanting the Lord Krishna's sahasranamam (10,000 names of Krishna) performing yagya.

Now, after getting to know how the rituals are done at home and temple, let me tell you about a fun game that is makes this Krishna Jayanthi more fun 'Haldi Handi.'

Haldi Handi -

Well, if you have not heard of this no issues I will tell you a lot more about it in detail here. It is the game with is conducted at some places mainly at Dwarka and at some of the dedicated Krishna temples by Krishna community people. 

Here, the Handi 'earthen pot' is filled with butter and curd is hung at an unreachable height within the street. And the people are given the task to break the handi and win the prize. 

To do this people join hands together and form a structure of a human pyramid to smash the earthen pot to win the prize that hidden within the haldi handi. 

Now, this is not that easy as you think. Yes, while doing this the audience around will throw a lot of water to cause distraction in achieving their target, and this is up to them how they take it and win the battle of smashing the pot.

I must say it is a lot of fun watching this Haldi Handi game on Krishna Jayanthi.

So, if you ever get a chance to make a presence please never miss this opportunity as you can have a lot of fun just by watching.

Now, with love let’s welcome our new baby Krishna in our life and get the divine blessing to clear all the karmic codes of this world. 

Happy Krishna Jayanthi !