Janmashtami is usually the Hindi meaning of birthday, but in India, Janmashtami is known as a festival because on this day Lord Krishna took birth. The day gets celebrated with a huge joy and happiness, and there are rarely a few people in the country who aren’t happy on this specific day.
The festival also gets known as Gokulashtami because on this day Lord Krishna took birth in Gokul as the eighth Avatar of Vishnu.
This is a festival which is not restricted to a specific region as it gets celebrated throughout the country with the same joy. Here are some points about Janmashtami:
Why Janmashtami gets celebrated: Krishna’s Uncle Kansa had an intuition according to which his sister’s son would kill him due to which he became cruel and killed every child that was taking place from Krishna’s mother Devaki’s womb. Krishna was Devaki’s 8th child and both Devaki and Krishna’s father “Vasudeva” didn’t want their eighth child to get killed. Hence, they hide their eighth child and Vasudeva took Krishna to Gokul where Yashodha took care of Krishna for a lot of years. So, for Krishna, there were two mothers, first who gave him birth, i.e. Devaki and second who took care of him, i.e. Yashodha. Janmashtami gets celebrated because even in a cruel world, Krishna took birth and everyone got successful to keep him alive which later on proved very right as he killed Kansa his uncle and a lot of other cruel powers which were spreading cruelness across the world.
How Janmashtami gets celebrated: Janmashtami gets celebrated in various ways all around the country and here are a few of those ways:
- In the northern part of the country, the festival gets celebrated in the best way possible because Krishna took birth in Mathura and grew up in Vrindavan. And during Krishna Janmashtami, people of Mathura and Vrindavan go crazy, they dance and sing joyfully, and the condition of both the cities converts into a fair. It feels like we are wandering in a fair because both the cities get covered with a huge number of gatherings.
- In Maharashtra, people like to play Dahi Handi. In this, a pot gets raised to a certain height which gets filled with curd, and then a team of individuals stands in the way that one of them can touch and reach to a place where one of them can hit the pot and break it. When the pot gets broken, the curd falls onto various members of the team, and this is what people go crazy about in Maharashtra. Various Dahi Handi competitions get organized in the state where the winner gets lacs of money.
- In the northeastern part of the country, people tend to do various kinds of plays and enact the way Radha and Krishna and Yashodha could have behaved.
These were a few ways how Janmashtami gets celebrated throughout the country.
Celebrations in other countries – This is a festival which doesn’t only get celebrated within the country, but it gets celebrated in various other countries as well. Here is how:
Nepal – Around 80% of the population of Nepal are Hindus, and that is why they celebrate Janmashtami in a great way. They sing various Bhajans and do various kinds of prayers on this auspicious occasion.
Fiji – A lot of population of the country are of Hindus, and that is why all the Hindus gather for eight days before the Janmashtami, and till the eighth day, the groups sing along each other and religiously celebrate the festival.
There are several other countries that celebrate Janmashtami like United States, T&T, and various others, etc.
Janmashtami is a wonderful festival of India. People enjoy it with all their heart, and it is noticeable that this festival will always spread happiness among people forever.
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