Krishna Janmashtami 2027
25 August 2027

Krishna Janmashtami remembers the night Krishna was born in a Mathura prison to Devaki and Vasudeva, as the Bhagavata Purana and the Vishnu Purana tell it, during the cruel rule of Devaki’s brother, King Kansa. Warned that Devaki’s eighth child would be his end, Kansa had killed six of her children, and the seventh, Balarama, was carried to Rohini’s womb; Vasudeva carried the newborn Krishna across a flooded Yamuna that very night to Gokul, exchanging him for Yashoda’s newborn daughter so the child could grow up safe.

The day is kept with a vrat, broken only after the midnight (nishita) puja. Homes and temples decorate a cradle (jhanki) or an idol of the newborn Krishna in new clothes, bathe it in panchamrit at the hour of birth, and ring bells and conches as the puja closes. In Vrindavan and Mathura, where Krishna is held to have grown up, the night is kept on the largest scale of all.

• Idol or picture of baby Krishna, and a jhanki (cradle)
• New clothes and jewellery for the idol
• Panchamrit (milk, curd, honey, ghee, sugar)
• Tulsi leaves
• Roli, akshat and kalava
• Diya and ghee
• Makhan-mishri for bhog
• Bell or conch

Source: Bhagavata Purana (Book 10) and the Vishnu Purana, the birth of Krishna

Kansa, the tyrant king of Mathura, had imprisoned his own sister Devaki and her husband Vasudeva after a voice from the sky warned him that Devaki’s eighth child would kill him. One by one, he killed six of her children as they were born; the seventh, Balarama, was carried to Rohini’s womb, as the Bhagavata tells.

On the eighth, at midnight, Krishna was born in the prison cell itself. The chains on Vasudeva fell away and the guards fell asleep, and a voice told him to carry the child to Gokul, across the river Yamuna, and bring back the daughter just born to Yashoda and Nanda in his place.

As Vasudeva stepped into the Yamuna with the child on his head in a basket, the river rose to touch Krishna’s feet and then let him pass. He left the baby with Yashoda, brought her daughter back to the prison, and by morning Kansa, finding only a girl, let his fear ease, not knowing Krishna had already been carried to safety and would return years later to end his rule, as the Bhagavata Purana tells.

What to do

• Keep the vrat at whatever pace your health allows; many elders permit milk or fruit for those who cannot keep a nirjala fast, and anyone with a health condition should check with a doctor before a strict fast.
• Decorate a small jhanki at home even if you cannot visit a temple; the cradle and a diya are enough to keep the night.
• Offer makhan-mishri as bhog, since butter and sugar crystals are what Krishna is believed to have loved best as a child.
• If your family keeps the Ashtami at midnight (Smarta) a day before the Vaishnava date, follow your own sampradaya’s custom rather than mixing the two.

What to avoid

• The vrat is usually not broken before the nishita puja; even those who eat something light wait until the midnight worship is done.
• Loud celebration is kept for after the midnight puja in many homes; the hours before birth are kept more quietly, in reading and bhajans.

Mathura and Vrindavan keep the largest Janmashtami gatherings, since this is held to be Krishna’s own birthplace and childhood home. In Maharashtra the day is marked by Dahi Handi, when young men build human pyramids to break a pot of curd hung high, after Krishna’s own fondness for stealing butter; in Gujarat and Rajasthan it is kept with Raas and Garba through the night.