Krishna Janmashtami · Janmashtami

Culture of origin: Hindu · Cultural

Holiday sources: Hinduism

Janmashtami celebrates the birth of Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu, at midnight in a prison in Mathura, where his uncle Kamsa held his parents. Devotees fast and sing devotional songs until midnight; then images of the infant Krishna are bathed, dressed and placed in a cradle, and the fast is broken. On the next day, Dahi Handi, above all in Maharashtra, youth groups form human pyramids to reach and break a pot of buttermilk hung high. Drik Panchang gives two dates in some years: the Smarta rule looks to the Ashtami at midnight (nishita), the Vaishnava one, followed by ISKCON, to the Ashtami and the Rohini nakshatra, and its date is the later one. This is the Vaishnava date, India's government holiday; Smarta households may keep it a day earlier.