Govardhan Puja and Annakut

How it is kept

1. 01

   Annakut: a hill of cooked food offered to Krishna and shared as prasad

2. 02

   A Govardhan shaped from cow dung in the courtyard, worshipped and circled

3. 03

   Cows bathed, painted and fed

4. 04

   Parikrama of Govardhan hill

01Indra’s rain and the hill

The Bhagavata Purana (10.24–25) tells it. The gopas of Vraja were preparing their yearly offering to Indra when the boy Krishna asked them why. Their cows grazed on Govardhan, he said; let them worship the hill, the cows and the brahmanas instead. They did, and Indra in anger sent the samvartaka clouds. Krishna lifted Govardhan with one hand and sheltered all Vraja beneath it for seven days and nights, until Indra came, humbled, and bathed him as Govinda.

02Annakut and the new year

In the havelis of the Pushtimarg, at Nathdwara above all, the Annakut is a mountain of rice with dozens of dishes laid around it before Shrinathji, and the prasad is given away by evening. At Govardhan town pilgrims walk the twenty-one kilometre parikrama of the hill. Gujarat begins its new year, Bestu Varas, on this day. In Maharashtra and Karnataka it is Bali Pratipada, when King Bali, sent below by Vamana, is welcomed back for a day, and wives wave the lamp before their husbands.

Also this month