PARV 12 OF 30 · BHADO
कृष्ण जन्माष्टमी
Bhado Krishna Ashtami (August–September)
"नंद के आनंद भयो, जय कन्हैया लाल की"
Katha · The story
Kansa, king of Mathura, was told that the eighth child of his sister Devaki would kill him. He imprisoned her and Vasudev and killed each child as it was born. On the eighth day of the dark half of Bhado, at midnight, in the rain, the eighth child was born; the chains fell, the guards slept, the prison doors opened, and Vasudev carried the baby across the flooding Yamuna in a basket, the serpent Shesha holding his hoods over them, to Nand and Yashoda in Gokul. He came back with their newborn daughter, who, when Kansa tried to kill her, rose into the air as the goddess and told him his destroyer was already safe.
The village keeps the midnight. The temple is decorated, a jhula is hung with the infant Krishna, and the children's Krishna-Radha fancy dress at the middle school has been a Malinagar tradition for decades.
Mahatva · Significance
The birth of Vishnu's eighth avatar, the god of the Gita and of the gopis both. For a farming village it is a monsoon festival: Krishna is the cowherd, the lifter of Govardhan, the boy who stole makkhan, and Bhado's rain is his weather.
"यशोमती मइया से बोले नंदलाला"
A line everyone at the festival knows
Vidhi · How it is done in Malinagar
Dahi-chura, makhan-mishri, panjiri, dhaniya ki panjiri, and the first bhutta (corn) roasted at the chowk.
The jhula of the Janmashtami is the same one that comes out for Ram Navami in Chaitra.