When is Krishna Janmashtami 2023? Date, Recipes, Gokulashtami Guide

Krishna Janmashtami date, festival guide, recipe links. Gokulashtami is a festival to celebrate the birthday of Lord Krishna. 

Jump to : About the festival | Collection of recipes | Celebration guide | Offering God | Shopping list | Gokulashtami date

About the festival

Krishna janmashtami is a Hindu festival in India, to celebrate the birthday of Lord Krishna. He is eight avatar of Lord Vishnu.

Every year, in Hindu calender it falls in the Tamil month of Aavani (ashtami thithi) and in english calender, it's either in August or September.

Though it is widely celebrated among Hindus, it is an Important festivals for people following Vaishnavism/ Iyengars.

As a kid, I always have celebrated Gokulashtami in my parents place. We make kai murukku, uppu seedai, vella seedai, appam and payasam.

I remember only seedai and murukku though. We draw maa kolam, baby Krishna’s feet from entrance to the pooja room. This is to indicate baby Krishna himself visiting our home.

Though I have not helped much and only see what my mom does, it always is a fascinating festivals when compared to others because of drawing the baby krishna’s foot in kolam.

The festival is celebrated all over India thought the way of celebration differs from region to region, house to house.

Mom says they always celebrate in their childhood too (my paati's house) . So I thought I too should follow the tradition at least for Aj to know all these.

Collection of recipes

These are the recipes we make

1. Nei appam recipe (or)
2. Instant Wheat flour appam recipe
3. Kai murukku recipe
4. Uppu seedai and vella seedai recipe
5. Paal payasam recipe (or)
6. Aval payasam recipe

Check out the other recipes you can make during festival

Browse more ➡️

As a disclaimer, I have to say – this is only the way WE celebrate the festival in our family, only our family practices. This will be helpful for myself sure for future reference, and if anyone is benefited from this post, I am more than happy 🙂

Videos

Check out my Gokulashtami recipe videos in Youtube.

Celebration guide

• After head bath, soak raw rice – for kai murukku, uppu seedai and vella seedai together  and for appam (if making nei appam with rice) separately and for maakolam separately.
• Buy fresh milk if possible and boil milk, set for curd, and separate butter if you want fresh butter. Or you can keep store bought butter too.
• You can finish all you other regular breakfast, lunch work and cleaning work and start the festival work.
• First you can finish drawing kolam so that it dries up while pooja. We draw baby Krishna’s feet from house entrance until pooja place and again draw from pooja place to house entrance.
• Meaning, we are inviting baby Krishna and finish our pooja, send him praying him to come next year same as this year and bless us.
• Now off to Kitchen work. Spread the soaked rice for murukku seedai in a white cloth. Keep a clean white cloth separately for this purpose alone.
• As mentioned in the post, grind the rice and divide the flour for murukku and for seedai. For seedai, we need to dry roast until steam rises. So do that and keep aside.
• Now make dough for murukku, salt and sweet seedai.  In the clean cloth, make murukku one side and keep seedai rolled other side.
• Make 3 seepanguzhal for baby krishna  as mentioned in my seedai post (rolled as stick – lollipop version of seedai for baby krishna).

Safety

You should fry murukkus first, salt seedai next and sweet seedai last as sweet seedai makes oil cloudy. Every time you handle murukku, seedai in hot oil BE IN A SAFE DISTANCE, after dropping in oil.

After this work, you can make paal payasam or aval payasam. Then make appam. Boil milk and add sugar candy, pacha karpooram to it.

Now keep ready payasam, butter, curd, milk and aval (Poha/ rice flakes) each in a bowl. We add couple of tulsi leaves in each bowl for garnish.

Offering God

If you have a Krishna idol or picture decorate it with tulsi, flowers (Sangu poo if possible) In front of Krishna, over the kolam, Spread banana leaf, keep murukku, seedai and appam.

In the thaamboola thattu (Pithalai thattu) keep betel nut and leaves (vethala paaku) , fruits and coconut if possible. We break coconut while pooja.

Keep along the other things like payasam, aval, butter, curd, milk in separate bowls (Silver if possible). We should keep these vessels separately just for offering to God.

We usually keep all the things prepared in front of God and sweet separately in a banana leaf piece (yeadu) for the vilakku (lamp).

Apparently, at our grand mom’s (mom's mom) house, they do the pooja at 12 am midnight. But we do only in the evening while we lit lamp. Above all, don’t frustrate yourself putting all works in your head and do it as burden.

Once in a while these festivals come, so we can do it to our heart satisfaction with whatever we can do.

If you're an office goer, opt for simplicity by offering curd, milk, butter and aval (flattened rice) – Krishna's favorites – along with some fresh fruits. Additionally, if time permits, consider preparing a delicious payasam or appam to enhance the meal.

You can make murukku & sedai the previous day too.

Check out the photos shared by my follower friends in this Facebook album:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1286652008012372&type=3

So here’s my shopping list for the festival. Add or reduce as per your family practice.

Shopping list for Gokulashtami:

• Jaggery
• Cardamom
• Cashew nuts
• Urad dal
• Wheat flour (if making wheat flour appam)
• Raw rice
• Sesame seeds
• Aval (Poha/ flattened rice) 
• Oil
• Milk
• Butter
• Coconut 
• Betel nut leaves
• Fruits (Banana, Apple, Orange, Grapes, Guava)
• Banana leaf
• Flowers, Sangu poo, Tulsi,

Gokulashtami 2023 date

Gokulashtami falls on Wednesday, 6th September. Please check with family elders to align with your traditions.

Check out my Other collections in my website.