Pan-India · August–September
Also known as Krishna Janmashtami · Gokulashtami · Krishnashtami
When it’s celebrated
The exact date shifts each year — it’s fixed from the panchang. Cast your free kundli or check the calendar for this year’s muhurat.
Significance
Janmashtami celebrates the birth of Lord Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu, who was born to destroy the tyrant Kamsa and restore dharma. It is a day of fasting, midnight worship and joyous devotion commemorating the descent of the divine to uphold righteousness and impart the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita.
The story
Krishna was born in a prison cell in Mathura to Devaki and Vasudeva, for the tyrant Kamsa — Devaki's brother — had been foretold that her eighth child would slay him and had imprisoned the couple. On the stormy midnight of his birth, the prison guards fell asleep and the chains broke; Vasudeva carried the infant across the flooded Yamuna to safety in Gokul, where Krishna was raised by Nanda and Yashoda, later returning to vanquish Kamsa.
Rituals
Across India
Celebrations are most intense in Mathura and Vrindavan, Krishna's birthplace and childhood home, with grand temple festivities. In Maharashtra and Gujarat the spirited Dahi Handi pyramids dominate, recalling Krishna's love of stealing butter, while in the South it is Gokulashtami, with children's footprints drawn from the doorway to the prayer room. In Bengal and Odisha it is observed with night-long devotion as Janmashtami.
Questions
Janmashtami celebrates the birth of Lord Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu, who was born to destroy the tyrant Kamsa and restore righteousness (dharma) on earth.
Lord Krishna is worshipped on Janmashtami, especially in his form as the divine infant born at midnight in Mathura.
Janmashtami falls on the eighth tithi (Ashtami) of the dark fortnight of Bhadrapada, usually in August or September, ideally when the moon is in the Rohini nakshatra. The exact date changes each year with the Hindu lunar calendar.
Devotees fast through the day, worship and cradle an idol of the infant Krishna at the midnight hour of his birth, sing bhajans, enact his childhood, and in many regions break the Dahi Handi pot of curd in human pyramids.
Because Lord Krishna is believed to have been born at midnight in a prison cell in Mathura. Devotees keep vigil and celebrate his birth precisely at that hour with aarti, bhajans and the cradling of his idol.
Book a pooja in your name, find the muhurat, or read the day’s panchang — bring the festival into your own practice.
